Young German sprinter wins as Tyler Farrar comes down at the head of the peloton
Marcel Kittel (Skil-Shimano) delivered on the promise he has shown so far this season by taking a stage victory in his first ever Grand Tour. The 23-year-old German won the 187.6km stage between Almadén and Talavera de la Reina, but a crash behind him brought down a number of his rivals and brought most of the peloton to a sudden halt. As one of the few other riders to be ahead of the crash, which occurred when Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo) tangled with Michal Golas (Vacansoleil-DCM) when he was avoiding a member of the Skil-Shimano lead out train, there was no challenge to Kittel’s powerful kick.
The previous day’s winner Peter Sagan (Liquigas-Cannondale) put in a late burst, to take second place, with three-time World champion Oscar Freire (Rabobank) in third.
“I can’t describe the feeling of winning here”, Kittel said at the finish. “It’s wonderful. We’ve been invited here and it feels good to be able to pay the organiser back for the faith he’s had in us.”
“To win a stage at a Grand Tour was a dream for me and for Skil-Shimano,” he explained.
Skil-Shimano was given a wildcard invitation to the Tour de France in 2009, but missed out on all of the Grand Tours the following year. Kittel’s victory is the first for the team at this level.
“At the end, it was my speed and my team,” Kittel explained. “Without a team, I wouldn’t have been able to show my speed to the world. I’m so proud of the team. I can trust these boys. They’ve worked at 120% for me today. They’ve done a perfect job.
“Our biggest goal was to save energy,” he continued. My team-mates didn’t waste any until they went to the front to set up the sprint. Everybody was happy that it was an easy stage after the last two days were really hard. We all knew that we’d have a hard fight at the end.”
The first true bunch sprint of the race so far came only after a first kilometre attack from Luis Angel Mate and Julien Fouchard (both Cofidis), Steve Houanard (AG2R La Mondiale) and Antonio Cabello (Andalucia Caja Granada) was overcome in the final ten kilometres.
Crosswinds in the closing kilometres of the stage briefly saw a number of splits in the peloton, but race leader Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) and the leading contenders for the race managed to stay in front. Chavanel managed to stop in time to avoid coming down at the finish, but at least one contender crashed in the shape of Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD), who rolled over the line looking far from happy.
Finally a true sprinter’s stage at the end of week one
“It’s gonna be a sprint,” predicted Eros Capecchi (Liquigas-Cannondale), the current mountains jersey wearer, at the start. “Daniele Bennati [Leopard Trek] is the hot favourite. If not him, the winner should be Marcel Kittel or Tyler Farrar.”
After a week of mountain stages, hilly stages and transitional stages, the pure sprinters were finally to get a stage to suit them. Unlike the day before, and stage two to Playas de Orihuela, there was no late climb to break up the peloton and, with no classified sprints on the entire 187.6km route, there was nothing whatsoever to stop the peloton’s fast men from having their day.
Virtually everybody at the start was predicting a sprint finish in Talavera and, while most teams were predicting their own man there was one name on everybody’s lips.
“I don’t think that anything else but a bunch sprint can happen today because Marcel Kittel is in the race,” Mario Scirea, sports director of Liquigas-Cannondale. “This guy is much more than a sprinter; I think that Kittel normally beats Sagan.”
An immediate, and predictable, group gets away from the start
Christian Guiberteau, sports director of Skil-Shimano, got his prediction almost perfectly correct on the morning before the stage. “There’ll be a breakaway with at least one rider from Andalucia and one from Cofidis,’ he said. “We’ll ride behind.
“[Simon] Geschke, [Alexandre] Geniez and [Yukihiro] Doi will take turns,” he explained. “If needed, [Johannes] Fröhlinger will go and help them. [Koen] De Kort, [Roy] Curvers and [Albert] Timmer will pull. The last lead out man is Tom Veelers.
“Hopefully, that’ll make Marcel Kittel a winner,” he added.
Luis Angel Mate and Julien Fouchard were the Cofidis riders that Guiberteau predicted would escape, with Antonio Cabello representing Andalucia-Caja Granada. Steve Houanard, who was a member of the long escape on stage two, was there to take the group up to four. The riders jumped inside the very first kilometre of the race, and were deemed acceptable as a group to the lethargic peloton.
Mate was the best placed of the four in the overall classification, but at 14’39” down he was never going to threaten Chavanel’s lead.
After just eleven kilometres the breakaway quartet was four minutes ahead, with the only incident being an uncharacteristic “chasse patate” from Fabian Cancellara (Leopard Trek), who jumped off the front after 16km. The group was 5’38” clear at that point, and the World time trial champion was back in the fold after just a few kilometres.
At the 26km point the lead was up to nine minutes, as Skil-Shimano came forward and began to peg it back. After 56km, with the race riding straight into a headwind, the gap was down to 4’30”, but began rising a little as the peloton relaxed once more.
The peloton was consistently headed by Skil-Shimano, with Garmin-Cervélo and Quick Step lending riders; Garmin-Cervélo for Farrar and Quick Step for both Tom Boonen and Chavanel.
The peloton closes the gap as the finish line approaches
Throughout the mid-part of the stage the break’s lead was fairly static, between five and six minutes, until Skil-Shimano began to increase the pace if the peloton and pull them back.
With 60km to go the gap was 5’15” with Quick Step’s Marc De Maar on the front, resplendent in his Curacao champion’s jersey. The pace was increased so much by the sprinters’ teams that just five kilometres later it was down to 3’19”, and with 50km to go it was just 2’37” with Garmin-Cervélo’s Sep Vanmarcke driving the pace.
As the race entered the final 30km the peloton’s rate of progress slowed as the roads descended towards the finish. The four in front were only 1’39” clear though, as the peloton began to split a little with the speed.
On a corner with 29km there was a crash at the back of the peloton as it slowed down to squeeze around. Riders that either came down, or were stopped by the incident, included Dario Cataldo (Quick Step), Wouter Poels (Vacansoleil-DCM), David Lopez (Movistar) and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing).
Following the corner there were more splits as crosswinds hit the exposed road, and Team Sky, including Bradley Wiggins, hit the front to exploit the situation. The resultant increase in speed saw the leaders’ advantage slashed to just 58 seconds with 25km to go.
The breakaway resists but its fate is sealed
With 18km to go Mate attacked, with just 25 seconds in hand over the peloton. He managed to create a small gap but was steadily chased down by Cabello and Houanard, only for Fouchard to go himself with 15km remaining.
With 13km to go Houanard finally surrendered to the peloton, with Cabello and Male following just a kilometre later. The peloton then slowed and spread across the road with Fouchard dangling just 100 metres in front, leaving the Frenchman to dangle agonisingly ahead
Finally, with HTC-Highroad on the front with 8km to go the Frenchman was caught and, despite the earlier splits in the peloton, it had all come back together and most of the big-name sprinters were present at the front.
Andreas Klier took over the pacemaking for Garmin-Cervélo on the front with 4km to go, to be replaced buy Stuart O’Grady for Leopard Trek with 3km; Daniele Bennati’s team, having done so much work for no reward the day before, was finally showing itself.
Inside the final 2km though, Skil-Shimano took over, with a three-man leadout in front of Kittel. The Dutch wild card team kept the pace high as they passed under the flamme rouge, marking the final kilometre, but as the speed began to drop Brazilian champion Murilo Fischer (Garmin-Cervélo) took over.
The sprint is on but then disaster strikes
Golas launched his sprint from a long way out, but faded quickly as Kittel’s Skil-Shimano team took over once more. As Veelers pulled over to launch the 23-year-old for the line though, he drifted backwards towards the sprinters behind him.
Farrar swerved to avoid Veelers but only managed to tangle with Golas, who was sprinting for a second time, and both riders came down. Their prostate bodies were immediately hit by a number of riders, who were unable to stop or get around them, with almost the entire peloton forced to stop suddenly or go down.
As well as Scarponi, who fell heavily on his right shoulder, defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale), Joaquim Rodríguez (Katusha) and Jurgen Van den Broeck (Omega Pharma-Lotto) also came down. Chavanel though, despite locking up his wheels and hurriedly unclip both pedals, managed to stop in time.
Kittel had safely avoided the incident and having kicked for the line, the other sprinters were learning, as they did in Poland earlier in the month, that he was almost impossible to get past. Sagan put in a late surge, but could only managed second, ahead of Freire and Bennati.