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6 hours ago
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Olav Kooij sprinted to victory on stage 12 of the Giro d’Italia as Isaac del Toro retained the pink jersey in Viadana.
Kooij was helped by a superb lead-out from his Visma-Lease A Bike teammate, Wout van Aert, with Casper van Uden (Team Picnic-PostNL) second over the line ahead of Britain’s Ben Turner (Ineos Grenadiers).
The 172km stage from Modena, the first stage-win opportunity for the quick men in a week, came down to the final few bends of a technical finish left slightly damp by earlier rain in Viadana, and Van Aert used all his experience to win the fight for position going into the final sharp left-hander.
Van Uden tried to go long with his sprint after being left with a slight gap as the road straightened out, but Dutchman Kooij kept his cool to take the win, his second career victory at the Giro after winning stage 12 in Naples last year. Turner held off Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), winner of three stages in this year’s race so far, for the last step on the podium.
A small crash in the peloton with around one kilometre left to go neutralised the times for the overall standings, allowing the general classification contenders to sit up. Del Toro leads by 33sec from his UAE Team Emirates teammate, Juan Ayuso, with the Bahrain-Victorious rider Antonio Tiberi third.
“I’d been waiting for this victory!” Kooij said afterwards. “In the previous two sprints, things didn’t go as planned. But today, everything went smoothly and I’m really happy. Only Wout can do such a long lead-out.
“I had incredible support; my teammates were amazing, the whole team did a fantastic job,” the 23-year-old added. “We didn’t want to be too far back going into the final corner. I managed to jump onto Casper [Van Uden]’s wheel and then get around him.”
Friday’s stage runs 180km from Rovigo to Vicenza in the Veneto region, and is mostly flat before rolling climbs in the final third and a climb to the finish line in the final kilometre.
