Degenkolb wins Tour Méditerranéen opener

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Giant-Shimano's sprinter John Degenkolb racked up his first victory of 2014 in the opening stage of the Tour Méditerranéen, besting Sicilian Danilo Napolitano (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Sonny Colbrelli (Bardiani-CSF) in the 223.5km stage from Argeles-sur-Mer to Montagnac.

The victory is the team's sixth after Marcel Kittle's hat trick in the Dubai Tour and Tobias Ludvigsson's stage and overall win in Etoile de Bessèges, but Degenkolb finally turned his pair of deuces from Etoile de Bessèges into an ace.

It was a chilly but clear day for the first stage of the Tour Med, and with a long day ahead, and only two category three climbs in the first half of the stage, the script was written well in advance, and five players were happy to come to the fore early in the day.

Juan Pablo Valencia (Colombia), Vegard Stake Laengen (Bretagne-Séché Environnement), Pierre Gouault (BigMat-Auber 93) and Fernando Grijalba (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA) went out from the gun and quickly gained 20 seconds. Sensing the move was going, Julien Bérard (AG2R La Mondiale) spent a good 10km bridging to the group before he finally made the juncture.

The five worked steadily while the peloton simply clicked off the kilometers, with Giant-Shimano taking the responsibility for keeping the gap around eight minutes.

Grijalba won both of the mountain sprints, followed by Valencia and Laengen in both cases, but then the gap began to slowly shrink.

The stage was going according to the usual plan until they reached a long, straight open road with 85km to go, and a turn into the cross-tailwind caused a rapid acceleration, and broke the peloton into two halves. It also served to quickly reduce the gap to the leaders, and as they reached the finishing circuits the five men had less than four minutes on the bunch.

Giant-Shimano's wicked pace at the front continued to shatter the peloton, and by the time the breakaway was caught with 30km to go, there were five groups on the road, and about 35 men left in front.

Europcar and IAM Cycling were well represented in the front, and finally, as the final lap approached, Giant-Shimano took its foot off the accelerator and allowed the leading group to grow.

Christophe Prémont (Wallonie-Bruxelles) attacked solo into the bell lap, and gained a healthy lead as Degenkolb suffered a mechanical with 10km to go, and his team put on the brakes.

IAM Cycling took up the chase, and together with BMC and Europcar managed to pull back the Frenchman with only 1km to go.

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