Quick-Step Floors' sprinter, Marcel Kittel, beat out a massive group of competitors in the sprint to the finish on Stage 2 of the 2017 Tour de France.
Day 2 at this year's Tour de France once again saw a rain, leaving slick roads for the riders.
A breakaway comprised of Cannondale-Drapac's Taylor Phinney, Wanty-Groupe Gobert's Yoann Offredo, Direct Energie's Thomas Boudat, and Fortuneo-Oscaro's Laurent Pichon split off from the peloton early in the race, and nearly held on to the end. Boudat and Pichon were caught by the peloton with 15 km left, while Phiney and Offredo were able to hold off everyone off until the last kilometer, after which they were overtaken by leadouts preparing for the final sprint.
Thomas Boudat was able to beat out Taylor Phinney in the stage's intermediate sprint, while Phinney took both mountains points available on the stage and finished the day in the polka dot mountains classification jersey.
Many general classification contenders, including Team Sky's Chris Froome and AG2R La Mondiale's Romain Bardet, went down on the course with around 30 km remaining when a large group from the peloton crashed after a rider slid out through a tight corner and took other riders with him.
Froome was able to catch back up with the peloton, with help from his team, after the crash and retain his position in the general classification after finishing in the bunch at the finish.
Team Sky rider Geraint Thomas will once again wear the Maillot Jaune, holding a five second advantage over BMC's Stefan Kung.
Kittel was able to live up to the high expectations set for him and capture the tenth Tour de France stage victory of his career. Being a German rider for a Belgian team, pressure was undoubtedly put on Kittel during the stage from Dusseldorf, Germany to Liege, Belgium.
On the final sprint, Kittel was able to beat out FDJ's Arnaud Demare and Lotto-Soudal's Andre Greipel at the finish and win the stage.
For his sprint finish win, Kittel will wear the green sprints classification jersey on stage 3. Stefan Kung will remain in the white best young rider jersey, while Team Sky remains in 1st place in the team classification.
Tomorrow's Stage 3 will take the riders 212.5 km from Verviers, in Belgium, into the commune of Longwy in northeastern France.
Comments
Post a Comment