Superb Matthews Closes The Gap On Kittel For Green

Superb Matthews Closes The Gap On Kittel For Green
21:56, 18 Jul 2017

The Tour de France returned from it’s rest day with a vengeance, as we had crosswinds and significant abandonments on a day that threatened to shake up the whole classification – and one that did change the top 10 as well.

Michael Matthews took the sprint by half a wheel from Dimension Data’s Edvald Boasson Hagen and John Degenkolb, rewarding a magnificent team effort from Sunweb, who have one jersey basically sealed, and are now in the running to take the Green jersey with Matthews now just 29 points behind Marcel Kittel.

In the fight for yellow, the top four in the race managed to get home in the front group on a day when crosswinds smashed the peloton in the last 20 kilometres, but Dan Martin was caught out by the splits, losing 50 seconds and dropping two places.

It was a frustrating day for Quick-Step – the first of it’s kind on this tour – with Marcel Kittel dropped early after a tough start, eventually coming home eight minutes down, and the Belgian Philippe Gilbert leaving due to a bout of viral gastroenteritis. The whole team was suffering from the sickness, which left Martin exposed late on and Kittel without proper support from the start.

The race’s profile promised an opportunity for Matthews, with climbing packed into the start and the first 60 kilometres especially, and also for the breakaway artists with tired legs and plenty of teams being represented in the first escape.

From the gun, Stefan Kung tried to get away whilst Sylvain Chavanel, Jonathan Castroviejo, Grega Bole, Jan Bakelants and Guillaume Van Keirsbulck all made various bids to get into moves.

Angelo Tulik, Mauritis Lammertink and Marcus Berghardt managed to make an escape although they were quickly reeled in straight away with the peloton now pushing on to drop other sprinters.

Thomas de Gendt made it over the first main climb although he had only 50 seconds in hand with Sunweb and BMC chasing hard whilst there were splits behind too with Luke Rowe one of the many riders to be dropped.

So too was the New Zealander George Bennett, who ceded time from the start having been dropped. Both him and Dylan Gronewegen were dropped from the very start and illness forced the New Zealander to leave the race.

In the final 15 kilometres, with the Sunflowers billowing from side to side, Team Sky put the hammer down and managed to eject Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) and Louis Meintjes (UAE Emirates) whilst keeping Chris Froome and Mikel Landa safe to boot.

The peloton raced to a tricky finish with several turns in the last five kilometres, and Movistar’s Daniele Bennati jumped off the front to try and take advantage – nearly 20 years on from his last win at the Tour. When he was caught and BMC’s Greg Van Avermaet snuck through on the inside to launch his sprint. However he could not shake Matthews, who times his sprint to perfection to take his second Stage win and Sunweb’s third.

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