After Dario Cataldo, Serge Pauwels and Niki Terpstra of Omega Pharma - Quick-Step Cycling Team tried to make breakaways during the 190.5km Stage 12 of La Vuelta a Espana, Kevin De Weert tried one more time for the team and finally got into the move of the day at the 78km point.
De Weert and his break mates worked well together, getting a gap of more than 7 minutes at one point during the stage. However, with less than 5km to go the gap was at a minute, and that was not enough once the break reached Cat. 3 climb Mirador de Ezaro. The climb — 1.9km, with gradients of 13 and 16 percent— was where the winning attack was made by Joaquin Rodriguez (Katusha Team) in the red jersey. He attacked in the final meters for the victory.
Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank - Tinkoff Bank) was 2nd and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) 3rd.
Pauwels was the top OPQS finisher, in 32nd place.
"Today I really believe that the breakaway could have made it," De Weert said. "But to arrive we needed at least two minutes at the bottom of the last steep climb. The problem was that Katusha and Movistar pulled the whole day to catch us and make the final. Anyway, today we tried very hard from the beginning. All of the team tried to get into the breakaway and I was the lucky one. It wasn't easy. The first two hours the speed was really high. At the Finish we had something like 44 km/h average speed. In the breakaway everybody did his job, we never went easy even because the peloton was riding really fast, they never gave up. In the last part of the race we had also a headwind. It's a pity, but that's cycling sometimes. For sure I will keep trying and fighting. The team is still motivated and we really want to go for a stage win in the next days."
