Tour de France: Kittel wins sprint in Troyes

Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) produced a remarkable comeback in the finishing straight of stage 6 of the Tour de France to claim victory in Troyes and confirm himself as the most powerful sprinter in the race. Chris Froome (Sky) finished safely in the main peloton to retain the overall lead.

When Kittel found himself a dozen places from the front with scarcely 250 metres to go, his cause seemed lost, but a prodigious acceleration saw him clock a top speed of 71kph and overhaul his rivals to win emphatically ahead of Arnaud Démare (FDJ) and André Greipel (Lotto Soudal).

Fabio Sabatini hit the front of the peloton with 800 metres to go and put in a lengthy turn on the front, but with Kittel so far back, it initially seemed as though Quick-Step had made a hash of their lead-out.

Kittel, however, had the nous to attach himself to the rear wheel of the green jersey Démare as the sprint took shape, and then the raw power to outstrip the competition on the Boulevard du 1er R.A.M.

"The last kilometre was a little bit freestyle but I had a good wheel, first from Arnaud Démare, and then I had to go at 250 to the front," Kittel said. "It went perfect. I could start from a great position, a little behind, to see where my rivals were going. I feel good at the moment."

In keeping with the tenor of this Tour to date, the run-in to Troyes was a rather disorganised, with no one team quite strong enough to take command of the situation as Saeco or Highroad might have done in generations past. Instead, there was a cornucopia of trains vying for supremacy, with FDJ, Cofidis and Katusha-Alpecin all prominent.

Quick-Step settled for a brace of major efforts, first when a clutch of blue jerseys massed on the front with five kilometres to go to marshal Kittel into position, and then when Sabatini kept the pace high inside the final kilometre.

Once Sabatini swung over, Dimension Data took up the reins, despite the absence of the injured Mark Cavendish, though Edvald Boasson Hagen's attempt to anticipate the favourites by sprinting from distance was optimistic in the extreme.

The French rivals Démare and Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis), as well as Greipel, all swept past Boasson Hagen as the sprint began in earnest, but while they all battled for the postage stamp of space near the right-hand barriers, Kittel simply cruised past on the outside, and had time to savour his win as he crossed the line. Démare beat Greipel to second, while Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin) took fourth ahead of Bouhanni.

"Wow," Quick-Step manager Patrick Lefevere said. "Sabatini did a great job to keep Marcel in front. There is not really one team that is stronger than the others, but Marcel is definitely stronger than everybody else."

In the wake of the expulsion of Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) following his part in Cavendish's crash on Tuesday, the sprinters were always liable to be under close scrutiny from the commissaires here, but the sprint was not bereft of tension, with Démare's lead-out man Jacopo Guarnieri taking aim at Bouhanni – who had himself complained of being impeded by Démare two days ago.

"Bouhanni is an idiot. He didn't just pass me, he also put his knee into my bars," Guarnieri complained to RAI. "He's a dick, he's always making people crash. We know he's like that. He's probably upset because he always loses…"

As Bouhanni warmed down on the rollers before a retinue of reporters, he limited himself to a single declaration: "You can all wait there if you like, but I'm not going to talk."

Démare's own manoeuvre in the finishing straight, meanwhile, saw Katusha lead-out man Marco Haller raise his arm in protest, and moved John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) to offer his own critique. "He actually moved off his line and went through a very, very small gap there," said Degenkolb, 10th on the stage.

Kittel, by contrast, seemed inured to the chaos that reigned around him, and it was a quiet day, too, for the general classification contenders, who all rolled home in the body of the peloton. Froome remains 12 seconds ahead of his Sky teammate Geraint Thomas, while Fabio Aru (Astana) lies third, at 14 seconds.

How it unfolded

Once again on this Tour, the early break drifted clear surprisingly early. Barely a kilometre had passed after the start in Vesoul when Perrig Quemeneur (Direct Energie), Vegard Stake Laengen (UAE-Team Emirates) and Frederik Backaert (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) ghosted clear and the bunch was happy to let the trio to it.

Perhaps the peloton was simply ruminating over the absurdity of the news from the start line, where it emerged that Bora-Hansgrohe had not only appealed Sagan's exclusion to the Court of Arbitration for Sport but had also requested his reinstatement to the Tour despite missing two stages. By day's end, CAS confirmed that it had rejected the appeal, but the marketing ploy had garnered its share of headlines in the meantime.

Out on the road, Quemeneur, Laengen and Backaert built up a maximum lead of four minutes before the peloton – led chiefly by FDJ – set about slowly reducing their advantage. Despite the exposed roads and occasional stiff breezes, the threat of echelons never materialised, and the podium contenders enjoyed a relatively relaxed day, though the high temperatures and the sheer length of the stage meant that it was by no means a day off.

In the absence of Sagan, the battle for the green jersey has taken on a new guise, and the intermediate sprint at Colombey-Les-Deux-Églises was keenly contested, with Démare taking the points for fourth place ahead of Michael Matthews (Sunweb) and Greipel. The Frenchman retains the green jersey, albeit with a lead of just 27 points over Kittel.

Quemeneur, Laengen and Backaert stuck gamely to their task in the final hour of racing, and they remained off the front until the final four kilometres, when they were eventually swallowed up. A breathless finale ensued, with Kittel emerging from the disarray to claim the win. Friday's long leg to Nuits-Saint-Georges should offer the fast men another opportunity, even if, on this form, Kittel will prove a tough out.

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