Dutch rider Danny van Poppel of Trek Factory Racing won stage 12 of the Vuelta a Espana on Thursday, edging a sprint finish from South African Daryl Impey of Orica-GreenEdge and Belgian Tosh van der Sande of Lotto-Soudal to take the 173km stage from Escaldes to Lleida, Spain, in a time of 4 hours, 2 minutes, 11 seconds as Germany’s John Degenkolb of Team Giant-Alpecin was again frustrated in his search for a stage win.
There was no major change in the general classification, so Italy’s Fabio Aru of Astana retained the leader’s maillot rojo by 27 seconds from Spaniard Joaquim Rodriguez of Team Katusha, with the Netherlands’ Tom Dumoulin of Team Giant-Alpecin three seconds further back.
Tinkoff-Saxo only took to the start line after more safety measures were introduced to protect the riders after Sergio Paulinho became the second member of the Russian-based team forced to retire from the race after being hit by a television motorbike on Wednesday.
Photo: AFP
Tinkoff-Saxo had threatened legal action after Sagan had been injured in similar fashion earlier in the week.
Thursday’s relatively flat stage was a brief rest bite after Wednesday’s trek over five climbs.
A five-man breakaway group of Maxime Bouet of Etixx-Quick Step, Miguel Angel Rubiano of Colombia, Jaco Venter of MTN-Qhubeka, Bert-Jan Lindeman of Team LottoNL-Jumbo and Alexis Gougeard of AG2R La Mondiale built up a lead of more than five minutes on the peloton and nearly made it to the finish as only a huge effort from Van Poppel’s and Degenkolb’s teams allowed the peloton to catch them less than 2km from the line.
The sprinters then took their positions, but just as on stage 10, Degenkolb found himself boxed in and unable to respond as Van Poppel surged for the line.
“When the opportunity is there you have to take it and in the end it was a nice sprint,” Van Poppel said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
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Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
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