Jasper Stuyven had been brought into a great position by Fabian Cancellara and found himself in the perfect position to start his sprint in today's stage of the Vuelta a Espana. Unfortunately, an untimely mechanical made it impossible to use his 11 cog and he had to stay on the wheel of his Swiss teammate.

The searing temperatures plaguing the race had eased, the gusting winds that so often rage in Spain were absent, and stage 12 was as tranquil as the weather.

The day’s breakaway – one solitary rider - represented the day’s buzz until he was inevitably pulled back on the last of eight laps of the 166.4-kilometer circuit race in Logroño.

Then the race leapt into action and the calm ended as the sprinters’ teams rallied for position; today’s flat parcours was always going to be a bunch sprint barring a surprise, and a solo escape was hardly going to pull off that shocker without divine intervention.  

Trek Factory Racing played a waiting game until the last kilometers when they moved to the front with Jasper Stuyven.  It was a good finale for the team with tight roads and tricky corners and when a crash happened in the final kilometer Fabian Cancellara had Jasper Stuyven ahead of the melee.

But when the sprinters fired, Jasper could not find his 11 cog and was unable to jump around. Fabian would finish in eighth and Jasper in ninth.

“We knew we had to be in front with the roundabout with 4k to go and I had Popo and Fabian with me," he said "We were a little bit far [back] but they knew perfectly how to move up. Fabian took some risks in the corner and I was in perfect position in the last kilometer and when I wanted to start my sprint – I knew it was a really fast sprint – I could not shift to my 11 and I was going a really high cadence in my 12. It’s a lost opportunity because I was in perfect position thanks to Fabian but I could not make my sprint.  I know I could have done a lot more.

"It’s a nice feeling to have Fabian in front of me. It motivates me to not lose his wheel because he is doing all that work, and he does it perfectly; his cornering is good, so I just have to stay in his wheel. After all that I feel a little bit bad that I could only finish in his wheel today.”

When you have a wheel to follow in a technical finish from one of the best in the business it’s hard to swallow a missed chance like today.  However, Cancellara shrugged off the miss-fortune; instead he pointed out that today’s plan was executed, and with a young team at this year’s Vuelta, there is nothing to be disappointed about.

“We had a strategy this morning to bring Jasper to the finish, it was a little bit tricky and that was better for Jasper, and in the end we just did our job," he said. "It was super fast because everyone was super fresh. Then the speed goes from 55kmh easily up to 65kmh. The equipment problems at the end – you cannot do anything against the specialists when you don’t even have a big enough gear.  We are with a young team here, and for Jasper it is his first Grand Tour, so I am not disappointed. We did a nice job.

"Of course it’s better to finish a race with a third instead of eight and nine. To have two riders in the top 10 means nothing; it does not look good. But we were blocked at the end – we could not go forward we could not go backwards, we were just standing still.”

John Degenkolb (Giant Shimano) sprinted to the victory. There were no changes in the overall classification.