Dutchman Van Poppel recovers from puncture to win stage

MADRID, Sept 3 (Reuters) - Dutchman Danny van Poppel won the 12th stage of the Tour of Spain on Thursday despite suffering a puncture about 10-km from the finish line. The Trek Factory Racing rider was dropped by a speeding peloton but fought his way back and eventually prevailed against South African Daryl Impey (Origa GreenEDGE). Belgian Tosh van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal) came home third in the 173-km leg from Andorra to Lleida. Fabio Aru of Italy retained the overall leader's red jersey for the Astana team. He heads Spain's Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) and Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) by 27 and 30 seconds respectively. The stage started without Tour de France champion Chris Froome who abandoned the race after fracturing his foot following a crash in Wednesday's punishing mountain leg. A five-man breakaway group took shape early on but they were reined in on the final straight after Giant-Alpecin had worked their way to the front of the peloton looking to set up a bunch sprint for John Degenkolb. The German, however, was ultimately boxed in and came home a disappointing fifth. (Writing by Julien Pretot,; Editing by Tony Jimenez)