Reims, France: Andre Greipel admitted he was relieved after finally returning to sprint form to claim Thursday’s sixth stage of the Tour de France in style.
The German had been out of sorts in sprints so far during the Tour, managing one sixth-placed finish on Tuesday’s fourth stage while compatriot Marcel Kittel dazzled, winning three of the opening four stages.
“There were two sprints where I couldn’t compete for different reasons but today I was really motivated and focused to have a good position for the sprint. I’m really happy the pressure’s off for the stage win,” said the 31-year-old, who took his total tally to six Tour stage wins.
“Of course, it’s a big relief for us [Lotto-Belisol], there was a lot of pressure on our shoulders because we worked really hard this week but for different reasons it didn’t work out.”
His victory ahead of Norway’s Alexander Kristoff in second and Samuel Dumoulin of France in third was the fourth by German riders in six stages of this year’s Tour.
However, until now it was the giant figure of Kittel who had dominated.
On Thursday, his Giant-Shimano team were strangely absent from the leading positions in the run-in and Kittel himself suffered a puncture before the final kilometre that put him out of the reckoning.
But Greipel dismissed his compatriot’s misfortune as a factor in his win.
“I’m not looking at Kittel, I don’t know what happened with him. I don’t need to hide, I’m still one of the fastest in the bunch.
“I just need to be there at the right time in the right place.”
Race leader Vincenzo Nibali kept hold of the yellow jersey as he and the rest of the overall contenders finished safely in a reduced peloton.
The 29-year-old Italian said he was relieved to have come through these first six stages unscathed but said he wasn’t getting carried away by his prospects of overall victory, despite holding a lead of more than two minutes on most of his main rivals.
“These are very difficult days because you use a lot of energy. There is incredible stress and crashes are a consequence of that,” he said.
“I’ll say it again, it’s a long path so I’ll keep my feet on the ground and stay calm.”
Nibali’s Astana teammate Jakob Fuglsang is second at 2 sec, with green jersey holder Peter Sagan, who was fifth on the stage, third at 44 sec.
Young Polish rider Michal Kwiatkowski, who made an audacious lone bid for victory from more than a kilometre out before being caught at around the 400m mark, remains fourth at 50 sec.
An early four-man breakaway failed to ignite a stage that had a sense of anticlimax following the drama of Wednesday’s cobbled stage.
Thomas Leezer, Arnaud Gerard, Jerome Pineau and Luis Mate did a valiant job of staying clear on a long 194km stage from Arras to Reims.
Mate lasted the longest but was reeled in with 12km left, taking away the combativity prize for the day as his reward.
Things only got heated in the final 10km when the pace rose and crosswinds contributed to a split in the peloton.
French champion Arnaud Demare was caught out, as well as his compatriot Thibaut Pinot, the top French hope in the general classification who lost another minute to Nibali and now sits almost 3 min 30 sec back.
Without Kittel, it was anyone’s sprint to win but Greipel, hitherto out of sorts in the sprints, launched his sprint finish early and powered through nonetheless.
“At 250 metres to go I said to myself ‘I have to go now’. It worked well, I had really good punch today,” said the victor.
