Sprint victory for Visma at last! Olav Kooij finally rewards Visma's work at Giro d'Italia with bunch sprint victory

Team Visma | Lease a Bike have previously won a stage this Giro d'Italia with Wout van Aert, but in the bunch sprints they have struggled quite a lot due to bad luck and positioning. Today at stage 12, they finally got their reward with Olav Kooij, after a perfect leadout from the Belgian.

Although stage 12 did promise some action early on due to the favourable weather conditions for a breakaway to succeed, it didn't prove to be the case, and only three riders went up the road early on: Manuele Tarozzi, Giosuè Epis and Andrea Pietrobon.

It was a very uneventful day in the peloton. Not fully calm, as the wind did blow and it caused some tense fights for positioning along the day, but without crashes or splits, most riders could enjoy a safe ride into Viadana. Isaac del Toro managed to capture 2 seconds in the final intermediate sprint, used to further boost his lead over the competition.

Pietrobon, the final survivor of the front group, was caught with 26 kilometers to go. From there on it became a slow build-up towards the final sprint, with the leadouts hitting the front from early on.

Team Visma | Lease a Bike this time around timed their efforts to perfection and were the team with the strongest leadout in the final kilometer. Wout van Aert overcame positioning struggles to leadout Olav Kooij in perfect position, who then outsprinted Casper van Uden who tried to surprise with an early sprint. Ben Turner was third in the finale.