Quick-Step Floors’ Marcel Kittel sprinted for his 13th victory at the Tour de France, his 4th of the 2017 race.
After Liège, Troyes and Nuits-Saint-Georges, the powerful German left an indelible mark also on Bergerac, a picturesque town on the Dordogne river, which saw his 13th stage success at the Tour de France, catapulting him straight into the history books.
Despite losing Matteo Trentin after the injured Italian came in outside the time limit on Stage 9, Quick-Step Floors kept on a leash the two-man breakaway which took off early on the day. Julien Vermote’s unrivalled labour ensured that Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro) and Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Groupe Gobert), who never had more than five minutes in their hands, got caught inside the final seven kilometers.
New Zealand National ITT Champion Jack Bauer didn’t hold anything back when it came to bringing the Quick-Step Floors train to the fore, before Zdenek Stybar and Fabio Sabatini stepped in and escorted Kittel into the final kilometer. The experienced Italian lead-out man dropped Marcel with 500 meters to go and the points classification leader patiently waited for his rivals to make the first move in the headwind, before majestically coming out of Dan McLay’s slipstream at 63 km/h and coasting to his fourth victory, ahead of John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo).
“It’s incredible to win four stages at a single edition of the Tour de France and it means a lot for me to achieve this fantastic feat,” said Kittel. “When I began my career, I was dreaming about becoming a professional, but I never expected something like this. I never race for records, but I must admit that having 13 Tour de France stages to my name is really special. I never felt better, I’m in good condition and all these things give me confidence, and that confidence, together with the team’s hard work and dedication, carried me again to victory.”
Kittel broke Erik Zabel’ 15-year-old record to became the most successful German rider in terms of stage wins at the Grande Boucle.
The German had words of praise for one of the race’s most hard-working riders, the unbelievable Julien Vermote, who so far has spent nearly 1000 kilometers at the front of the bunch, making sure no breakaway succeeded on the flat stages: “What Julien is doing is absolutely incredible. He’s showing the world how strong he is, physically and mentally. Riding in front of the peloton, keeping the same speed and tightly controlling the escapees, it may look simple, but it isn’t, so hats off to him.”
With ten days left between Bergerac and Paris, where the race will conclude, the Quick-Step Floors fast man – who now has more Tour de France victories than the likes of Gino Bartali or Mario Cipollini – holds a commanding 102 point-gap over the closest rival in the green jersey standings.
Chris Froome (Team Sky) remains comfortably atop the general classification, 18 seconds in front of Astana’s Fabio Aru.
Stage 10 Brief Results:
- Marcel Kittel (Germany / Quick-Step Floors) 4:01:00″
- John Degenkolb (Germany / Trek-Segafredo) ST
- Dylan Groenewegen (Netherlands / LottoNL-Jumbo)
- Ruediger Selig (Germany / BORA-hansgrohe)
- Alexander Kristoff (Norway / Katusha-Alpecin)
- Nacer Bouhanni (France / Cofidis, Solutions Credits)
- Daniel McLay (Britain / Fortuneo-Oscaro)
- Pieter Vanspeybrouck (Belgium / Wanty-Groupe Gobert)
- Sonny Colbrelli (Italy / Bahrain-Merida)
- Edvald Boasson Hagen (Norway / Team Dimension Data)
General Classification After Stage 10:
- Chris Froome (Britain / Team Sky) 42:27:28″
- Fabio Aru (Italy / Astana Pro Team) +18″
- Romain Bardet (France / AG2R La Mondiale) +51″
- Rigoberto Uran (Colombia / Cannondale-Drapac) +55″
- Jakob Fuglsang (Denmark / Astana Pro Team) +1:37″
- Daniel Martin (Ireland / Quick-Step Floors) +1:44″
- Simon Yates (Britain / Orica-Scott) +2:02″
- Nairo Quintana (Colombia / Movistar Team) +2:13″
- Mikel Landa (Spain / Team Sky) +3:06″
- George Bennett (New Zealand / LottoNL-Jumbo) +3:53″
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