Denmark’s Nicki Soerensen, of the Saxo Bank team, maintained an impressive breakaway to win the 12th stage of the Tour de France here on Thursday.
Soerensen won the stage in 4hr 52min 24sec, with Italian Rinaldo Nocentini of AG2R retaining the race leader’s yellow jersey on the 21-stage Tour with a six and eight-second lead respectively on race favourites Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong of Astana.
With 5km to go, Soerensen pulled away, leaving the fading Calzati to be submerged by the following pack and building up an impressive lead of almost 30 seconds over 1km. At the finish, the 34-year-old Soerensen was free to bask in a first ever Tour stage win after 10 years as a professional cyclist and seven previous Tours. There were five riders at 48sec, Remi Pauriol at 1:33 and the main peloton at 5:58.
Overall standings: 1. Rinaldo Nocentini(AG2R) 48:27.21s; 2. Alberto Contador (Astana) +06s; 3. Lance Armstrong (Astana) + 08s; 4. Levi Leipheimer (Astana) +39s; 5. Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) +46s
Comments