TDF 2013: Stage 10: Break Leads to Kittel Sprint Win

July 9, 2013. By Jen Benepe

A long and windy stage led to a scrambled sprint in Saint Malo, delivering Marcel Kittel to the line ahead of Andre Greipel.

Maybe on paper the final sprint should have gone to Greipel, but Kittel had a few more men in the final sprint, and he came up behind the German to take the win.

To any educated eye, it looked like Mark Cavendish, frustrated by sprinting with Kittel’s lead out man so close to the finish, shouldered Agros-Shimano rider Tom Veelers, sending him crashing to the pavement.

No word yet if the race organizers will punish the Manx Missile for that one: it looked suspiciously like the Mark Renshaw head butt we saw in 2010. Certainly they did in 2010, sending Renshaw home in disgrace.

It was a strange end to a long day in which a five-man breakaway stayed out in front for 191 km of the 197 km stage.

The impassioned leader of that break was Frenchman Julien Simon of the Sojasun team who would pass him hometown Beignon along the course, and wave hello to his grandfather.

He held on almost to the end, pedaling just meters ahead of the galloping peloton behind him at the 191 km mark.

Lieue Westra who was part of the break and a more experienced rider, gave up a couple of kiliometers before the Frenchman.

The stage from Saint-Gildas-des-Bois to St-Malo on the northern coastline of Brittany was a flat course, with 45 points on for the first rider at the finish and only one categorized hill, the cote de Dinan.

That kind of topography always favors the sprinters, and usually engenders a breakaway, which of course  today it did.

Those five  riders took off near the start, among them Simon.

“We will pass Beignon, which is where my mother and my grandmother are from and I know all the roads in the area by heart,”  said Simon before the race, according to The Télégramme newspaper.

“Before moving to Lamballe, I often trained in a Paimpont forest… It will be an additional motivation. On the rest day, I tried to relax well so that I could regain energy, to try to do something.”

The break riders’ rankings at the start of the stage were Jerome Cousin (FRA) EUC – 178th overall, at 1h54’08”, Lieuwe Westra (NED) VCD – 177th overall, at 1h52’06”, Luis Angel (ESP) COF – 122nd overall, at 1h23’46”, Julien Simon (FRA) SOJ – 100th overall, at 1h09’54”, Juan José Oroz (ESP) EUS – 93rd overall, at 1h03’19”.

The stage started with 182 riders, with Vasil Kiryienka (SKY)–remember him, he was one of the Sky Team that helped pace teammate Chris Froome up the mountains in stage eight only to get blown away by the Movistar team the next day –he was eliminated after stage nine for finishing outside the time limit (37’58” behind Dan Martin).

Spanish team Movistar was the leading team at the start of stage 10, with a lead of 4’11” over Saxo-Tinkoff and the eight riders were wearing yellow helmets and yellow race numbers in stage 10. Race organizers encourage the leading team to wear them as part of an initiative that started last year.

At the start of the stage Froome (SKY) had an advantage of 2’45” to 10th placed Rui Costa (MOV). Froome’s advatage was  far from the largest in history and no doubt in coming stages he would be looking for more of an advantage.

Roman Kreuziger and Alberto Contador (TST) were fifth and sixth, both at 1’51”, while the rider in the white jersey, Nairo

Quintana (MOV) was seventh at 2’02”.

Of the five men in the break, none has previously won a stage of the Tour de France: Oroz (EUS) started his season at the Tour Down Under in Australia and his best race result in 2013 is 14th in Paris-Camembert. Maté (COF) started his season at the Trofeo Palma in Mallorca and his best race result in 2013 is 5th in the one-day Vuelta a Murcia.

Cousin (EUC) won his second race for the season, the opening stage of the Etoile des Besseges. That was his only victory so far in 2013.

Westra (VCD) also started his 2013 season at the GP de Marseillaise (like Cousin) and the Dutchman has won twice this year: a stage of the Tour of California and the national TT championships. He has had 15 top-10 places so far this year, and today he did about 28 percent of the pacemaking.

Simon (SOJ) started his season in the GP de Marseillaise and placed in the top nine twice at the 100th Tour de France (6th in Ajaccio and 9th in Calvi). He was 2nd overall after the stage to Calvi.

At the 44km mark the peloton had a deficit of 4’50” to the leaders. The maximum advantage of the five break riders was 5 minutes and 50 seconds.

Halfway through the stage, the advantage had dwindled to 3 minutes and 57 seconds.

At the intermediate sprint in Le Hinglé, Mate (COF) was the first over the line, earning him 20 points, followed by Westra (VCD) 17 pts, Simon (SOJ) 15 pts,  Cousin (EUC) 13 pts, and Oroz (EUS) 11 pts.

Behind them by only 2 minutes and 25 seconds, Andre Greipel beat out Peter Sagan to the line, racking up another 10 points. He was followed by Sagan (CAN) 9 pts, Cavendish (OPQ) 8 pts, Flecha (VCD) 7 pts, and Rojas (MOV) 6 pts.

As they got closer to the finish, the big teams were getting nervous: the end to this stage would involve some tricky turns into the final finish.

In the Cote de Dinan, Westra took the only point on offer at the category 4 climb. They were now only a little more than 30 km from the finish, and the leaders were only 2 minutes and 15 seconds ahead. Westra tried to move ahead of the lead group, but he couldn’t sustain the pace.

News spread across the peloton that there was a crosswind near the end of the stage, creating  a level of anxiety among the teams for the final set up to the finish. Team Saxo-Tinkoff brought their GC leader Alberto Contador to the front of the peloton,

presumably because they wanted to avoid another crosswinds separation (like Contador experienced in stage 3 in 2009 on the way into la Grande Motte, when 28 riders went ahead in the split caused by the crosswinds.)

At 37 Km from the finish, the lead group was only 2 minutes ahead and the wind was blowing. Behind them the teams were taking turns organizing for the sprint.

The leaders had been out in front for 165 km.

With 7 km to go to Cancale, where the crosswinds were expected to pick up, everyone was anticipating a split in the field. The Belkin team came to the front to push the pace.

The break was only 58 seconds ahead now. Oroz made an attempt off the front of the leaders to get ahead, but he was pulled back by Westra.

As they entered Cancale, the leaders hit the winds, and their advantage continued to dwindle. Behind them the Saxo-Tinkoff riders were controlling the pace with concern that Contador should not be left behind in a potential split–or desire to keep him ahead if it did. Contador was one man back as they climbed the little hill in Cancale. “Very strange to see a GC Team setting the pace on a stage like today,” commented Phil Liggett on NBC Sports.

The reference was pointed, considering how Contador has lost time in the past in a wind-buffeted split in 2009.

At 21 km to go, the leaders were ahead by 28 seconds ahead.

In the peloton, a crash came around a round-about split, with Juan Antonia Flecha going down: he had to chase back to the peloton.

Then Westra was dropped, and the four remaining leaders were in front. Inside 15 km, the leaders’ advantage had only 15 seconds on the group powering up behind them.

Cousin, Oroz, Simon and Mate were just 11″ ahead of the peloton that was now led by three from Saxo-Tinkoff. Then Sky’s Stannard pulled ahead of Froome at the front on the left side of the road while Argos-Shimano formed its lead-out train on the other side of the road.

Peter Sagan was in and out near the front. The gap to the leaders was about 250 meters.

Then Omega-Pharma Quickstep, Mark Cavendish’s team came to the front, as well as Andre Greipel’s team, Lotto-Belisol.

Eight km to the finish, the leaders were about to be caught, with Frenchman Simon putting a little more effort at the front before the game was up: they had 8 seconds ahead, and had been in the lead for 189 km.

The town of Saint Malo was beckoning with its blue seas. A quick attack by Mate dissolved as Stuart O’Grady took the lead for the peloton’s Orica GreenEdge for their sprinter Mattie Goss, and Julien Simon surrendered after 191 km in front.

Four km before the finish, the peloton was in control and driving the pace. Saxo-Tinkoff was in front with Contador in tow. Omega Pharma Quickstep and Lotto Belisol were coming forward to get their sprinters to the front.

Andre Greipel was fifth back in the Lotto-Belisol team line up 1.7 km from the finish. Peter Sagan was not far back. Marcel Kittel’s boys were also up near the front, with Kittel 5 men back.

With one km to go, the riders were traveling at 60 km per hour: behind them was a tailwind, and Greipel looked to have a good lead out, and Cavendish went behind him.

As they came around the bend, there was a crash of an Agros Shimano rider, and the final sprint put teammate Marcel Kittel first in front of Greipel. Cavendish just couldn’t catch up to the two of them.

But in a final play by play, it appeared that Cavendish had given Kittel’s teammate a shoulder nudge, the move that took him down. Maybe they just nudged each other.

Overall individual time classification

Total distance covered: 1710.5 KM

Tomorrow the Tour will host a 33 km individual time trial at Mont St. Michel, that little town surrounded by the ocean.