HIS FIRST GRAND Tour stage may have come without the blessing of his teammates, but Peter Sagan’s victory on Stage 12 of this year’s Vuelta a España proved mercifully free of controversy.
With two wins and a second place already to his name in this year’s race, the Slovak now finds himself in contention to take his first overall points jersey: fitting reward for a year that has seen him record ten victories worldwide.
Forced to negotiate the final kilometres of today’s stage without the aid of a lead-out train (his teammates were concentrating on assisting General Classification contender Vincenzo Nibali), Sagan took to the wheel of Leopard-Trek’s Daniele Bennati heading into the home straight and timed his charge perfectly, emerging from the shadow of the Italian to cross the line by a bike length from HTC’s John Degankolb. The 21-year-old’s unwitting assistant, Bennati, finished in third.
A minor fracture in the peloton led to race leader Bradley Wiggins losing the grand total of a second to Sagan’s team leader, Nibali, and five to Astana’s Fredrik Kessiakoff, but he’ll retain the red jersey for the negotiation of tomorrow’s more challenging 158km route between Serria and Ponferrada.
Today’s bunched finish means that the GC positions of Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche remain unchanged overnight, with the cousins lying in 23rd and 18th place, respectively.
