Tag: Marcel Kittel

  • Marcel Kittel corners the market on Giro road stage wins outside Italy

    Marcel Kittel won stage two from Arnhem to Nijmegen. Unsurprisingly, stage three from Nijmegen to Arnhem didn’t offer radically different terrain, so he won again. The deja vu was compounded by two of yesterday’s breakaway riders – Maarten Tjallingii and Giacomo Berlato – getting in the break again. In 2014 – the only other time…

  • Marcel Kittel’s poor form is definitely over

    This is very, very obvious. 2015 was a write-off for Marcel Kittel due to illness, stress and an endless fruitless quest to chase down some half-decent form. In 2016, it’s everyone else who’s doing the chasing. Stage two seemed pretty straightforward for him. The German’s Etixx – Quick-Step team-mates chose their moment to drag him…

  • Kittel v Cavendish – head-to-head record

    Almost as if he wanted me to expand on my half-baked ramble from earlier in the week, Marcel Kittel again beat Mark Cavendish in a sprint finish at the Tour of Dubai. The win also means he won the race as a whole, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about how…

  • Mark Renshaw wins one for the pilot fish

    I probably should have done some sort of ‘riders to watch’ post for the Tour of Britain. Fortunately, the end of stage two did it for me with many of the strongest names taking turns to lead down the descent of the Great Orme where they could be seen from a faintly disconcerting side-on camera…

  • Marcel Kittel’s back off holiday

    Because that’s where he’s been, right? On the eighth of July, he’d won three out of four stages and then, on the 27th of July, he won a fourth. In between those times, he disappeared. I can only conclude that he had a fortnight in the Bahamas. What an oddly protracted sporting event the Tour…

  • André Greipel finds a way to beat Marcel Kittel

    Greipel wins! Take that, pedals! Cycling’s beefiest, stompiest sprinter finally got a result on stage six. Usually one of the fastest finishers, Greipel had been oddly anonymous up until now and I’ve heard it said that he might have lost his nerve a bit. There was no sign of that today though. How did he…

  • Tommy Voeckler was in the break so the Tour’s started now

    Okay, the Tour is officially underway. I know we’ve already had the Grand Départ and millions of people watching, but two crucial things happened on stage four. One, we got to France. Two, Tommy Voeckler got in the break. It isn’t the Tour until we’ve had Tommy’s TV time. Tommy Voeckler’s faces are quite simply…

  • Marcel Kittel wins stage but loses hair gel

    Not everything’s going Marcel Kittel’s way. Big disaster at the airport in London: my hair gel did not make it through the security check… 😛 — Marcel Kittel (@marcelkittel) July 7, 2014 But other than that, he’s having a fine old time. Kittel notched his second win out of the three British stages in London,…

  • Mark Cavendish and his oddly bouncy skeleton

    The people of Yorkshire followed the script, lining the route like yellow human fencing. Jens Voight followed the script, getting into the day’s break, despite being 42 and there being little chance of success. He’s not unduly troubled by petty concerns like that. The peloton followed the script, racing into the finish in Harrogate at…

  • Have you got used to Marcel Kittel finishing first in this year’s Giro yet?

    Stage two: Marcel Kittel wins. Stage three: Marcel Kittel wins. This time, he gave everyone a head start, sprinting from way back in the bunch. But it didn’t really affect things. He is very, very fast. Kittel did at least have the decency to be really tired afterwards, having a little bit of a lie…