Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) won his third sprint victory in Valence, confirming he is the best sprinter in the 2015 Tour de France.
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.
“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.