Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) moved into double figures for his tally of victories in 2016 in the best possible style on Sunday, clinching both the fourth Giro d’Italia stage win of his career and, simultaneously, the first maglia rosa of his career.
If stage 2 had already seen the German fastman take one bunch sprint with stunning superiority, on stage 3 Kittel’s triumph over team Sky’s Elia Viviani was even clearer. As a result, of the four mass-start stages the Etixx-QuickStep rider has taken part in the Giro d’Italia in 2014 and 2016, two in 2014 - before a DNS on stage 4 into Italy - and two in 2016, Kittel has been unbeaten in all of them. He has now, too, taken 10 wins in 2016.
The key difference with the 2014 Giro d’Italia, of course, is that this time round Kittel is also the race leader, too. “I won’t be in pink in Turin, that’s for sure,” he said with a chuckle when asked if he would complete the race, “but so far this has gone perfectly.”
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“I wanted to start out strongly focused on the time trial and then get good results in the first two stages, and now I fly to Italy with the pink jersey in my suitcase. We will fight our way through the rest of the Giro to see what more we can achieve."
Kittel will turn 28 on Wednesday and he was asked if he thought he could keep the lead at least until then. Although Tuesday’s 200 kilometre stage from Catanzaro to Praia di Mare is very lumpy, as former leader Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin) has already pointed out, Kittel looks to be more than capable of handling such terrain in his current condition, and even stage 4’s fairly hilly 233 kilometre trek from Praia a Mare to Benavento do not contain any classified climbs. There is room, then, for optimism on his part.
“If it’s possible I will do so but not at all costs,” Kittel argued, after saying he had forgotten it would be his birthday on Wednesday. “For now I’m not going to sacrifice everything to do so, but it would be nice, for sure.”
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