Marcel Kittel's first encore of stage victories in this Tour. In an all-Teutonic sprint, the German of Argos-Shimano, already winner and first yellow jersey in Bastia, gets the better of his compatriot André Greipel. Mark Cavendish, the number one favorite when there is a bunch sprint, has to settle for third place ahead of Peter Sagan. Cannonball this time, perhaps fooled by a false curve 150 meters from the finish line, got the wrong train and trajectory. He tried to recover in extremis without paying too much attention to good manners so as to give a shoulder to the poor and innocent Tom Veelers, Kittel's teammate, who had just finished throwing the sprint to his captain and who found himself thrown from the saddle flying dangerously in the middle of the road.
Only by some miracle was he not run over by the rest of the group. The chronicle of yesterday's stage in Saint-Malo can be summarized competitively here, in the sprint that concluded it. The escape that animated it, of five bottle cages (Cousin, Simon, Oroz, Mate and Westra), later reduced to four due to the failure of Westra, it was clear from birth that it was destined to fail with the sprinters who had put in the viewfinder, like a woodcock hunter, this stage without altimetric obstacles. Saint-Malo, the beautiful Breton city, intact in its historical perimeter of fortifications, was for centuries a port for corsairs in the pay of the King of France. Yesterday as a corsair there was only the discard of Cavendish, coincidentally an exponent of that England, the age-old enemy, which Surcouf, the most famous of the corsairs – to whom Saint Malo has dedicated a monument – fought for a whole life.
The stage, which crossed lands that gave birth to legends of transalpine cycling such as Lucien Petit Breton and Louison Bobet (two Tours won by the former, three by the latter), was above all useful for promoting another piece of France from a tourist point of view, beautiful , with its coves where the highest tides in the English Channel enter. It didn't affect the Tour standings at all as it was expected as it was on the eve of today's time trial at Mont Saint Michel, 33 km which will give another important response on the fate of the race. The favorite for the day's victory is the German Toni Martin, but all eyes will be on Froome, the yellow jersey who could – the prediction between the big names is all on his side – increase the advantage over Valverde, Contador and the other less distant rivals in ranking. For Team Sky, which took the opportunity today to regroup the ranks, it would help to completely forget the failure accused in Monday's Pyrenean stage.
