Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) continued his domination of the sprint competition at the Tour de France with his fifth victory at this year's race on Wednesday in Pau. Kittel had a clear advantage over second-placed Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data).
Kittel has now won more stages than any one rider in a single Tour de France since Mark Cavendish's haul of five back in 2011. Eight is the most that any one rider has won in a single Tour de France, with just three riders achieving that.
"It's incredible. Sometimes, I think, when you're on your top level in the sprint it's like playing Tetris, and I think in the last games I always got the right gaps. I never made a mistake and all lines were perfect.
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"It's incredible. I'm so happy and it's so nice to give the team a victory. Julien worked today, Philippe Gilbert worked today, and Jack Bauer worked today. They are all champions. They are killing it for me at the moment."
Stage 11 of the Tour de France always looked like a sprinter's day, but Bora-Hansgrohe's Maciej Bodnar tried to upset the formbook. Bodnar had been part of the day's breakaway until he decided to go it alone with 23 kilometres remaining. He was never given much space, but he still held off the baying pack until 500 metres to the line.
With Bodnar caught, it was another sprinting masterclass from Quick-Step Floors. Dimension Data employed the same tactic that they had into last week's stage into Nuit-Saint-Georges, but Kittel had Boasson Hagen's number. Despite having to go the long way around to navigate a tiring Bodnar, he still had the legs to win by a convincing margin. Groenewegen used the slipstream of the big German to pull himself into second place.
How it happened
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