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Froome out of Vuelta as Van Poppel wins in Lleida

Xinhua, September 4, 2015 Adjust font size:

Tour de France winner Chris Froome was forced to withdraw from the Vuelta de Espana (Tour of Spain) cycle race on Thursday as a result of a broken foot he suffered on Wednesday.

Froome broke his foot in a fall in just the third kilometer of Wednesday's 138 km stage to Andorra, which included one second category, four first category and one special category climb and which has been dubbed the hardest Vuelta stage ever.

He finished over eight minutes down on stage winner Mikel Landa, but the miracle is that he was able to continue riding at all after x-rays showed the extent of his injury.

Thursday's stage 12, which took the race down from Andorra to Lleida was won by Dutch sprinter, Danyl Van Poppel, who rides for the Trek racing team.

Van Poppel was faster than Daryl Impey (Orica Green Edge) and Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto Soydal) over the closing meters of a stage, which had one major climb before the halfway stage, but which allowed the main peloton to neutralize and escapees in the second half of the day.

As a result there is no change in the overall standings where Fabio Aru (Astana) maintains a narrow lead over Joaquin Rodriguez and Tom Dumoulin of 27 and 30 seconds respectively.

Friday's 13th stage sees the race travel into Aragon with 178 kilometers containing two third category and one first category climb between Calatayud and Tarazona. Endit