Tour de France: Unstoppable Kittel wins again in Pau

Image 1 of 45

Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) continued his domination of the sprint competition at the Tour de France with his fifth victory at this year's race on Wednesday in Pau. Kittel had a clear advantage over second-placed Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data).

Kittel has now won more stages than any one rider in a single Tour de France since Mark Cavendish's haul of five back in 2011. Eight is the most that any one rider has won in a single Tour de France, with just three riders achieving that.

"It's incredible. Sometimes, I think, when you're on your top level in the sprint it's like playing Tetris, and I think in the last games I always got the right gaps. I never made a mistake and all lines were perfect.

"It's incredible. I'm so happy and it's so nice to give the team a victory. Julien worked today, Philippe Gilbert worked today, and Jack Bauer worked today. They are all champions. They are killing it for me at the moment."

Stage 11 of the Tour de France always looked like a sprinter's day, but Bora-Hansgrohe's Maciej Bodnar tried to upset the formbook. Bodnar had been part of the day's breakaway until he decided to go it alone with 23 kilometres remaining. He was never given much space, but he still held off the baying pack until 500 metres to the line.

With Bodnar caught, it was another sprinting masterclass from Quick-Step Floors. Dimension Data employed the same tactic that they had into last week's stage into Nuit-Saint-Georges, but Kittel had Boasson Hagen's number. Despite having to go the long way around to navigate a tiring Bodnar, he still had the legs to win by a convincing margin. Groenewegen used the slipstream of the big German to pull himself into second place.

Chris Froome finished safely in the pack to retain the yellow jersey ahead of Thursday's mountain stage. One of his major rivals, Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), did not lose time, but had to chase back after a crash, as did Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo).

How it happened

The sprint stages have followed a formula throughout this year's Tour de France and stage 11 was no different. The breakaway once again went in the opening metres of the stage, with the sprinters' teams shutting things down almost straight away.

Bodnar was one of the three to jump clear along with Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Marco Marcato (UAE Team Emirates). As soon as they made their move, Froome made it clear that this was it when he rode to the front and promptly took a nature break. With that, the gap was quickly established and the three riders had a maximum gap of little more than two minutes.

As he's done for the last two weeks, Julien Vermote assumed the front for Kittel and managed the pace. He had some help in the form of Katusha and other sprint teams but Quick-Step Floors did the lion's share of the work.

After very little happening in the opening half of the stage, the second was afflicted by several crashes. The most serious of which saw Dario Cataldo (Astana) abandon the race. His team leader Jakob Fuglsang was also involved in the incident but avoided any serious injury.

Both Contador and Bardet came down in two separate incidents. Contador's involved his teammate Michael Gogl, who took much longer than his leader to get back on his bike.

As the gap to the escapees dipped below a minute, Bodnar decided that he would see how he did on his own. His companions didn't resist too much and allowed him to go solo. Bodnar made valiant effort to hold off the peloton, but with the full might of the lead-out trains hunting him down, he didn't have much of a chance, though he held on until the final few hundred metres.

Fabio Sabatini (Quick-Step Floors) led the pack through the final kilometre before Dimension Data briefly took over. Kittel was too strong, though, and nothing could stop him taking his fifth victory of this Tour de France.

Full Results