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Meersman wins sprint to claim second Vuelta stage victory

Xinhua, August 25, 2016 Adjust font size:

Gianni Meersman won the fifth stage of the Vuelta de Espana (Tour of Spain) cycle race and his second stage of the race when he claimed a sprint finish in the town of Lugo on Wednesday.

The Etixx-Quick Step rider held off the challenge of a reduced peloton in the last 500 meters after being given a good leadout by his team-mates, ahead of Laurent Didier and Kevin Reza.

The day' s habitual breakaway contained just two riders, but nevertheless opened up a gap of five minutes, before Tiago Machado (Katusha) tried his luck on his own as his companion Julian Morice tired.

However, with one of the few sprint finishes in this year' s Vuelta awaiting at the end of the stage, the big teams began to work together with around 50 kilometers remaining and Machado' s lead was quickly sliced away, setting up what at always been an inevitable group sprint, despite the late efforts of Simon Clarke and Phillipe Gilbert who almost stole the stage with a late break on the final short climb of the day.

The overall stands remain unaltered with Darwin Atapuma (BMC) in the overall lead, followed by Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Chris Froome (Sky) in second and third.

Stage 6 on Thursday takes the riders 163 kilometers over increasingly hilly terrain with a second category climb between Montforte de Lemos and Luintra as the race remains in the north of Spain. Endit