Greipel has often been the bridesmaid to Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep), Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) as they won the most important sprints in professional cycling, but now he seems to have the best finishing sprint. He seems able to produce more power, reach a higher finishing speed and read the sprint better than his rivals.
Greipel dug deep to survive and stay in contact with the front group in the hilly opening 75 kilometres and after the 7.9km Col d’Escrinet climb, so he could then use his sprinting skills.
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“It was a pretty tough stage, we were suffering from kilometre zero until the end,” Greipel explained in his usual gentle Gorilla persona that is so different to when he is sprinting to the line.
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Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
