South African Daryl Impey has sprinted to a close second place on stage 12 of theVuelta a Espana, the national time trial champion just pipped in the closing metres of the slightly uphill finish.

Following yesterday’s epic mountain stage, ORICA-GreenEDGE also successfully protected Colombian Esteban Chaves to ensure the 25-year-old finished in the bunch to retain fifth place overall.

There were some tense moments in the closing 20km of the day as the bunch had to put in maximum effort in order to make an extremely late catch of the early break.

Impey hit the front in the final one hundred metres, but was just beating over the line in the closing metres by Danny van Poppel (Trek Factory Racing) for the victory.

“I thought it was going to be touch and go if we were going to catch them but I had to rely on a bit of luck,” Impey said. “When I saw them with 500m to go I knew we would catch them with the run in but it was very close.

“I actually thought I had it and then when (Van Poppel) passed me in the last 30-40metres I was heartbroken. There was nothing I could have done; he was coming faster than me.

“The guys really looked after me today and we gave it our best shot. Obviously I’m disappointed not to win but I’m happy that I gave it everything and the day went according to plan.”

"The mountains have only started," Chaves said. "There are three or four more stages that are as difficult as yesterday's. We continue with the the same goal as when we started the Vuelta. Trying to make it into the Top 10 in the GC and see if my body is competitive for 21 days. That's my main goal in this Vuelta."