Kittel takes second win at Eneco Tour

Image 1 of 30

Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) took his second stage victory at the Eneco Tour with a well-timed sprint in Bergen op Zoom, while Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) moved into the overall lead.

Kittel was too fast for Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Belisol) and Giacomo Nizzolo (RadioShack-Nissan) in the sprint finish and the German was quick to give credit to his Argos-Shimano teammates for the win.

"It's just incredible what they do for me," said Kittel. "They support me 100 percent. They bring bottles, they close down breakaways. I cannot thank them enough.

"It was very hard," said Kittel of the stage. "At 800 meters from the line I was still in 15th position. Then Tom Veelers and John Degenkolb brought me forward. At 500 meters I even had a short moment to rest. I don’t know how they exactly did that, but it was fantastic."

Boonen finished in fourth place on the stage but dispossessed Jens Keukeleire (Orica-GreenEdge) of the overall lead after picking up a two-second time bonus at the stage's final intermediate sprint, 15km from the finish. Keukeleire dropped to second overall at one second while Boonen's teammate Sylvain Chavanel holds third on general classification at two seconds.

"The plan was to win the stage," Boonen said. "It didn't work out, but we have the leader's jersey. We were chasing down the breakaway a few kilometers before the sprint bonification. We were in the front of the peloton and automatically I took the bonification.

"I'm happy because I like this race and it's always nice to get the leader's jersey. Tomorrow we will have to control the race, which is never easy. Then we have to do a good time trial. I really want to ride a good TT going into the last stage."

Omega Pharma-Quickstep has other options, however, if Boonen isn't able to keep the leader's jersey himself.

"But I'm not the only one in the team who can do well," said Boonen. "Niki [Terpstra], Sylvain [Chavanel], Dries [Devenyns] and Michal [Kwiatkowski] are all good time trialists and they are also good on a parcours like the one we have to face off on, on Sunday. We will see."

A six-man break rode away from the peloton early in the opening kilometers of the 213.3km stage and was comprised of Frederik Veuchelen (Vacansoleil-DCM), Egurrola Saez De Arregui (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Arnoud Van Groen (Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda's), Martin Kohler (BMC), Gert Dockx (Lotto Belisol) and Boris Shpilevsky (Ag2r-La Mondiale). Their lead ballooned to 8:25 after 35km of racing, but the Orica-GreenEdge team of race leader Jens Keukeleire trimmed it back to a manageable increment of 2:25 by kilometer 85.

The break's lead remained pegged between two and three minutes until the teams of the sprinters could sniff the finale and assisted in reeling in the escapees for good. Inside of 20km remaining the break's lead stood at just 22 seconds, prompting Veuchelen to attack alone in a bid for stage glory. His fellow escapees were soon swept up by the peloton, but the Vacansoleil-DCM Belgian pushed onwards only to be captured eight kilometers later.

The Katusha squad was then prominent on the front of the peloton through to the stage finish, working for recent Olympic bronze medalist Alexander Kristoff, but Kittel dispatched of his sprint rivals to earn a second stage victory at the Eneco Tour.

Full Results