Tour de France: Kittel makes it three in Lille Métropole

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Giant-Shimano's Marcel Kittel won a close-fought sprint to take stage 4 of the Tour de France from Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Lille. The German managed to ease out Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Arnaud Démare (FDJ.fr) to seal his third stage victory of the race, while race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) enjoyed another relatively quiet day in the saddle.

Defending champion Chris Froome (Team Sky) had no such luck, crashing near the start of the stage and sustaining a number of cuts and abrasions. He rode the rest of the race with his left wrist in a harness and will undergo medical evaluations after the stage.

Kittel had no such problems, stepping onto the podium for the third of four stages. He’s only one stage away from equalling his haul of four stage wins from last year and despite a difficult run-in into Lille, his raw speed was enough to take the victory again. Even when Kristoff had a slight gap inside the closing 200 meters, Kittel refused to panic, coming off of Omega Pharma-QuickStep sprinter Mark Renshaw’s wheel before scooping up Kristoff and crossing the line first.

"It was really fast and difficult to stay together with the team. In the end, the boys delivered me to the front,” the stage winner said.

“I was able to sit on the wheel of Renshaw, I was only thinking about the last corner. They told me at 250 meters I could see the finish line and I was almost tempted to go already at 500 because I couldn't see where I was. I had to sit down again. I went really long. It was everything I had, it was really difficult.”

It certainly wasn’t an easy finish for Kittel. The sprinter was forced to navigate through the final few hundred meters as his rivals massed around him. Perhaps his presence in the heat of the battle already had a few of them beaten because of his dominance so far in the race, and there was a certain amount of inevitability once Renshaw turned back to see the towering German on his shoulder. Omega’s Mark Cavendish is at home injured but other sprinters like André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) should have been competing with Kittel. Unfortunately, a late crash took out half of the Lotto man’s lead-out train but nevertheless the man from Rostock is far from his best at the moment.

On Wednesday, Kittel will have to give centre stage to the Classics specialists and overall contenders but his mark on the race has already been made: three wins, a day in yellow and not a hair from his coiffured head out of place.

Vive la France

With the English coastline no more than a speck on the horizon, it was time for the Tour to take on the more familiar sights and sounds of the French countryside. With the race passing by the same region as where Cofidis are based, there was little surprise when Luis Mate (Cofidis, Credit Solutions) scurried clear in the opening kilometres. Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) soon joined him but with an almost-pan flat parcours and with the sprinters out of the limelight the following day, it would have taken remarkable circumstances for the duo to alter the script.

What wasn’t in the script was Froome’s fall. So far, the defending champion hasn’t put a foot nor a pedal stroke wrong the race. However, the Tour can throw up a surprise when you’re least expecting it and inside the first four kilometres, a slight deviation up ahead left Froome with no where to go but on the ground. He hit the deck and Bauke Mollema (Belkin), an overall contender in his own right, was down too.

The peloton eased up and waited - giving the break a chance to establish itself – as Froome dusted himself off and began to chase. His team dropped back but the sight of his ripped jersey and shorts were a reminder of the fall he took at the Dauphiné, when he also landed on his left-hand side.

Once normality had returned and the heart rates of those in Sky’s team car had dropped, attention turned back to the two leaders. Such contrasting styles: Mate almost glued to the saddle, and immersed in concentration as his companion, Voeckler, gesticulated with anyone and anything around him. Somehow though, the partnership worked and they established a respectable lead as they headed east and towards Lille.

The field splits after intermediate sprint in Cassel

With the peloton five kilometres from the sprint at Cassel, the green jersey of Peter Sagan, who's bike is custom painted with the Wolverine on it, moved up through the field. No matter which Marvel Comics superhero his team portray him to be, the Cannondale rider is nothing but ruthless in his pursuit of the green jersey.

He eased out the impressive Bryan Coquard (Europcar) for third but the sprint, which had come at the top of a climb, and provided an opportunity for Lotto Belisol and Cannondale to increased the pace and split the peloton into two groups.

Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), Pierre Rolland (Europcar) and Michael Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) all lost ground and it forced almost the entire Omega Pharma-QuickStep team to drop back.

Up ahead, the partnership between Mate and Voeckler came to a dramatic end with the Spaniard puncturing.

Even when Kwiatkowski’s group had made contact with the peloton his team’s bad luck wasn’t over with Niki Terpstra crashing and needing a bike change.

Voeckler continued to plough on on his own off the front, cheered on by a French crowd eager to see one of their own animate the race back on French soil.

On the Mont Noir, the 35-year-old held a mere 1:17 minutes over the peloton but with Giant-Shimano amassing on the front, he stood little chance to make it to the finish line alone.

Another crash, with the tarmac now damp and littered with road furniture, saw Greipel lose a trio of his Lotto lead-out men as Bart de Clerq, Lars Bak and Gregory Henderson hit the ground. The latter was the worst off and was forced out of the race all together.

Voeckler was eventually caught inside the last 16km, and there was further late drama as Sagan also fell. He was forced to chase and managed to reach the front just in time to latch onto Kittel’s rear wheel for the sprint.

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