Dutchman Van Poppel recovers from puncture to win stage

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.