Sastre happy with time trial

Presuming there are no major changes to the general classification tomorrow, Carlos Sastre will start Saturday's time trial third overall, 44 seconds behind race leader Alejandro Valverde. He said before stage 12 that he was happy enough with the profile of the race against the clock.

"For me, I think the time trial is not so bad. There is a third category climb halfway through the stage and in that way, it is much, much better."

For the past two days riders have been exposed to very changeable weather, with rain making an appearance. Sastre said that this can be welcome at times. "It is a calm day at the moment, good weather and I feel recovered after yesterday. That is the most important thing. Yesterday [Wednesday] was hot and the humidity was high, then we had a bit of rain to cool things down. It was dry again towards the finish, when things can be dangerous, so in that way it was really nice for us."