In the Tours at the time of the national teams, a stage like yesterday's in the Tour, 216 km from Vesoul to Troyes, like today's one with arrival in Nuits Saint Georges, was a terrain of conquest for the regionals with long-range breakaways in the full group disinterest. Today in the Tours of sponsors who invest tens of millions in cycling demanding immediate returns, it is increasingly rare for an escape to go through.
As happened yesterday with the three fugitives of the day grabbed less than 5 km from the finish line by the sprinter teams ready to compete for victory in yet another crowded sprint. Finale embittered by some right-angle curves that taken at speed and with the density of wheels looking for the best trajectory are always at a high risk of falling.
This time, luckily, everything went smoothly with Marcel Kittel's prodigious recovery in the middle of the road who repeated his success in Liège, bringing his tally of victories in the Tour to 11, thus catching up with his rival Greipel, a German like him but with whom, being they say, there is bad blood. But there was no shortage of thrills because Arnaud Démare, in the green jersey as leader of the points standings, bordering the barriers, risked the photocopy of Cavendish's unfortunate sprint in Vittel to seek victory.
But Greipel, unlike Sagan, did not swerve to the right avoiding to hinder the French who would have had no escape. Démare preceded the German Gorilla by a whisker but had to stifle the cry of joy because in the center the white-blue jersey of Kittel, the leader of the Quick-Step Floors, who had played hide and seek until the last 50 meters, darted past him. “My goal on this Tour is the green jersey,” admitted Kittel.
For Demare, who has the same goal, a bad customer, this big German born of Arndst 29 years ago. Obviously, the classification does not change compared to the one established by the previous stage in LaPlanche des Belles Filles, marked by the splendid solo by Fabio Aru and by the change of the yellow jersey from Thomas to his captain Froome.
