Marcel Kittel once again made his case for being considered cycling's best sprinter, as the Quick-Step Floors rider captured his fourth stage victory of the 104th Tour de France after beating out a pack of riders on the final sprint in Bergerac.
Stage 10 departed from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine market town of Perigueux, with Wanty-Groupe Gobert rider Yoann Offredo making the first move of the day in the early kilometers.
Offredo was soon joined in the attack by Elie Gespert of Fortuneo-Oscaro, as the two-man group began to distance themselves from the peloton.
Gespert and Offredo quickly built their cushion on the field, with their gap enlarging from 3:30 at 12 kilometers to 5:30 as they rode 17 kilometers into the stage.
The lead duo went out at a quick pace, covering over 45 kilometers in the first hour, while holding their lead of 5+ minutes on the main pack.
The attack could not maintain their pace from the first hour, as Gespert and Offredo has slowed to covering 40 kilometers in the second hour.
As the leaders summited the first of two category 4 climbs of the day at the Cote de Domme, Gespert was the first to cross the line and capture the first mountains classification points of the day.
Once the leading pair began to descent the Cote de Domme, their gap on the chase pack had slowly began to disintegrate, as they rode less than 3 minutes in front of the peloton.
At the stage's only intermediate sprint in Saint-Cyprien, Yoann Offredo took the sprint to the line ahead of his partner in the break, Gespert, to take 20 points in the green jersey classification.
Soon after Offredo and Gespert passed through Saint-Cyprien, teams in the peloton soon began to set up their sprinters for the race to the line at the intermediate sprint.
In Saint-Cyprien, Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) was able to beat out Marcel Kittel and Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin) to take 15 points towards the points classification.
On the final climb of the day to the summit of the Cote de Buisson-de-Cadouin, Elie Gespert was once again able to beat out Offredo to the top and take home another point for the mountains classification.
As Gespert and Offredo passed through Saint-Capraise-de-Lalinde, the peloton quickly began reeling the two-man lead group in and had closed the gap to under 1 minute.
7 kilometers from the finish line in Bergerac, Gespert and Offredo were final caught by the chase pack after leading the race for almost 171 kilometers.
For his efforts in the attack and on the climbs during the stage, Gespert was awarded the title of most aggressive rider for Stage 10.
Soon, the peloton worked their way into the town of Bergerac, with teams setting up their lead outs and navigating the sharp turns in the final kilometers.
The bunch sprint began as the peloton made their way to the line with under 1 kilometer to go, as a group of 5 riders jockeyed for position in the final 100 meters.
Ultimately, Marcel Kittel once again proved to be the strongest sprinter on the day, and beat out Trek-Segafredo rider John Degenkolb by a bike length to take another stage victory in Bergerac.
Rounding out the top five, after Kittel and Degenkolb, were Dylan Groenewegen (Lotto NL-Jumbo), Rudiger Selig (Bora-Hansgrohe), and Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin).
No changes occurred in the classifications after Stage 10, as Chris Froome (Team Sky( keeps the yellow jersey as overall leader, Marcel Kittel keeps the green jersey as points classification leader, Warren Barguil (Team Sunweb) will keep the polka dot jersey as King of the Mountains, Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) will keep the white jersey as best young rider, and Team Sky will keep their lead in the team classification.
Stage 11 will once again be a flat stage in southwestern France, as riders will depart from the town of Eymet before covering 203.5 kilometers on their way to the finish in the city of Pau, at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains.
Comments
Post a Comment