Before Friday's tough mountain stage to the Col du Tourmalet, the sprinters had another go on the 12th stage of the Vuelta a Espana 2023. Two-time stage winner Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was beaten by Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) after 150.6 kilometres between Olvega and Zaragoza. Third place went to Boy van Poppel (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty).
"Rui (Oliveira; editor's note) did it perfectly. We pulled it off exactly as we had planned in the morning. We knew that we needed the inside line on the last corner. That's exactly how we did it," said Juan Sebastian Molano in the winner's interview about the sprint.
Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) defended the red jersey. Like the other favourites for overall victory in the Tour of Spain, the American had a quiet day in the peloton. There were no shifts among the top 10. Only Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) made up some time with a bonus.
Vuelta a Espana 2023 - Results: The top 10 of stage 12
- Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates) 3:25:35
- Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +0:00
- Boy van Poppel (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) +0:00
- Rui Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates) +0:00
- Edward Theuns (Lidl-Trek) +0:00
- Marijn van den Berg (EF Education EasyPost) +0:00
- Alberto Dainese (Team dsm-firmenich) +0:00
- Orluis Aular (Caja Rural) +0:00
- Hugo Page (Intermarche-Circus-Wanty) +0:00
- Milan Menten (Lotto-Dstny) +0:00
The current standings in the overall standings
- Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma) 42:51:20
- Marc Soler (UAE Team Emirates) +0:26
- Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step) +1:09
- Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) +1:32
- Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) +2:02
- Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) +2:16
- Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) +2:22
- Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) +2:25
- Enric Mas (Movistar) +2:50
- Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe) +3:14
How the 12th stage of the Vuelta a Espana 2023 went
Shortly after the start, two riders broke away from the peloton: Jetse Bol (Burgos-BH) and Abel Balderstone (Caja Rural). The Dutchman and the Spaniard dominated large parts of the 12th stage of the Vuelta 2023, with Alpecin-Deceuninck controlling the gap to the breakaway duo in the peloton. The wind that many feared blew very weakly on the roads of Aragon, so there were no wind edge situations.
Bonus for Roglic
Around 44 kilometres before the finish, Bol and Balderstone were caught by the peloton. But Bol hadn't had enough and attacked again. A few kilometres later, however, his second breakaway attempt also came to an end. At the intermediate sprint, 18.7 kilometres before the finish, Primoz Roglic secured four bonus seconds by finishing second behind Groves and thus made up some ground in the overall standings.
A closed peloton then rolled into Zaragoza, where the bunch sprint took place. Everything initially went according to plan for Alpecin-Deceuninck and Groves, but Juan Sebastian Molano had the better timing as he and his rider Rui Oliveira shot past the Alpecin train with a massive surplus of speed in the final kilometre, took the last slight left-hand bend on the inside and secured his second stage win of the Tour of Spain after winning stage 21 of the Vuelta a Espana 2022. Groves made a strong comeback, but had previously tangled with the rear wheel of his rider and lost too much momentum to jeopardise Molano.
Tour of Spain 2023: Read up on the 12th stage in the blog
On Friday, the Tour of Spain continues with a very difficult mountain stage onwards, which are Col du Tourmalet ends in France.
