Tour de France: Kittel still sprint king in Bergerac

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Marcel Kittel (QuickStep Floors) proved again that he is the sprinter to beat at the Tour de France, winning the mad dash to the line on stage 10 by an impressive margin. John Degenkolb (Trek Segafredo) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) could only watch the man in the green jersey pull away from them.

There was no change in the overall classification on an otherwise quiet day, with Sky's Chris Froome keeping his 18 second lead over Fabio Aru (Astana), and 51 seconds over Romain Bardet (AG2R La Mondiale).

Kittel's win, his fourth in this Tour, was his 13th overall, moving him into the record for victories for German riders in the Tour. He came into the finale relatively far back in the field, but simply powered his way up to blast by his would-be rivals.

"I won now so many stages in the Tour. I never expected it when I was starting my career," Kittel said. "I never really expected to be even in the Tour. I was hoping maybe at one point to become a professional, but that I would be at this level with these wins, it's hard for me to imagine.

"I think I had a pretty good spot because it was still relatively far with 500m to go at the last left corner. I saw that McLay started to sprint very early to come to the front, and that was my lead-out. From then on, I hit the front at 220 and I think it's no surprise that I feel really good at the moment in the sprint."

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How it unfolded

The day was overcast but mercifully dry, as the 180-rider strong peloton took off from Perigueux after a rainy rest day. As expected, the action started immediately. Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) took off as soon as the flag dropped, and was soon looking back in surprise at being alone. At last Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro) joined him. The peloton breathed a sigh of relief and let the duo go. After 20 km they had a lead of more than five minutes.

But five and a half minutes was a bit too much for the field, and Lotto-Soudal, desperate to set up a sprint win for Andre Greipel, started the early chase. The gap soon dropped and then held steady at around five minutes before inching its way back up

By the time the feed zone was reached halfway through, the gap had fallen to 3:20, with Lotto-Soudal and Quick-Step Floors leading the field.

As usual, the sprinter teams lined up for the day's intermediate sprint, less than three minutes behind the leaders. Quick-Step took off first, but it was Andre Greipel who took the maximum points, ahead of Marcel Kittel (QuickStep) and Alexander Kristoff (Katusha). Their speed dropped the gap to 2:33.

Katusha and Cofidis both moved up to help with the chase, and with 40 km left, the gap had fallen under two minutes, continuing to fall rapidly. The field ground their way steadily along and with 6.9 km, the two leaders were swallowed up.

Lotto Soudal drove furiously, with Katusha and Direct Energie setting up their trains at the front as well. The sprint teams put up such a pace that the field split.

Lotto took the lead into the finale and around the final curve, but then faded away. Kristoff was the first to go but was again too early in the wind. Daniel MacLay (Fortuneo-Oscaro) went for his chance, but Kittel put on his usual impressive show of strength to move from far back to fly past everyone else. Degenkolb pulled hard, with Groenewegen right behind him, but they had no chance against the man in the green jersey.

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