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Tour de France Stage 14: Cavendish takes fourth stage victory (+ video)

Kittel shows frustration after seeing Manxman pass him

Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) took stage 14 of the 2016 Tour de France – his fourth win of the race. Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) came second with Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) coming from some way back to take third.

At the start of the day, the peloton observed a minute's as it was the first time the riders had all been together since the Bastille Day attack in Nice.

Shortly after, a four-man break valiantly took on the headwind on the 208.5km stage from Montélimar to Villars-les-Dombes. The final two members of it, Jeremy Roy and Martin Elmiger, were reeled in with 3.5km to go.

Marcel Kittel (Etixx-Quick Step) led out the sprint and while he appeared angry with Cavendish in the home straight, he was perhaps more annoyed with himself for having launched too early, the Manxman sailing past him to take the win.

Speaking afterwards, Kittel said: “I started my sprint super fast with 220m to go, the train worked well. I was in the inside, I was well positioned. I saw Cavendish passing me and he swerved to the right and I needed to brake to avoid collision. It's not up to me to decide if he made a mistake.”  

Cavendish's take was: "I jumped around him and obviously it bent over to the right and he's kicked off a little bit, but I was way past him by then. I don't figure there's anything wrong there. I think he was just frustrated." 

It was Cavendish's 30th Tour de France stage win. Only Eddy Merckx is ahead of him with 34.

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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7 comments

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Sleekspook | 7 years ago
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Sour grapes Kittel!!  Helicopter shot clearly shows The missile beating you and was leaving you for dust!!!

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Jonny_Trousers | 7 years ago
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Pah, total sour grapes from Kittel.

Loving that Cav is dominating again. 

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wycombewheeler | 7 years ago
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I think they both move towards each other, not by a lot, just a litte, but frankly, Cav is ahead by then anyway, and isn't going to be caught ny Kittel regardless. 

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barbarus | 7 years ago
1 like

Love Sagan, the way he just goes for things. I reckon there's more to come from him, with technical nous he will be amazing. Great stuff from Cav, looking positive for Rio. I'm eating my words I was thinking he didn't deserve a place earlier in the year.

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tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
1 like

Kittel's a baby. Whining because he ran out of gas and actually when you watch the replay, it was Kittel that moved in to Cav. Cav picked a nice clean line and held it. 

Face it, Cav's instinct is too sharp right now and along with his power guys like Kittel can't handle it unless Cav gets boxed in.

 

Watch all 4 of Cav's stage victories and you'll see one thing in common. Cav and Sagan's timing. Both of them are mentally on the ball. If Sagan had Cav's peak wattage he'd be a true competitor to Cav right now in the sprints.

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ooldbaker replied to tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
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unconstituted wrote:

Kittel's a baby. Whining because he ran out of gas and actually when you watch the replay, it was Kittel that moved in to Cav. Cav picked a nice clean line and held it. 

Face it, Cav's instinct is too sharp right now and along with his power guys like Kittel can't handle it unless Cav gets boxed in.

 

Watch all 4 of Cav's stage victories and you'll see one thing in common. Cav and Sagan's timing. Both of them are mentally on the ball. If Sagan had Cav's peak wattage he'd be a true competitor to Cav right now in the sprints.

Interesting graph. If Sagan ever get's half of MC's  instinct he will be unstoppable.

Avatar
tritecommentbot replied to ooldbaker | 7 years ago
0 likes

ooldbaker wrote:

unconstituted wrote:

Kittel's a baby. Whining because he ran out of gas and actually when you watch the replay, it was Kittel that moved in to Cav. Cav picked a nice clean line and held it. 

Face it, Cav's instinct is too sharp right now and along with his power guys like Kittel can't handle it unless Cav gets boxed in.

 

Watch all 4 of Cav's stage victories and you'll see one thing in common. Cav and Sagan's timing. Both of them are mentally on the ball. If Sagan had Cav's peak wattage he'd be a true competitor to Cav right now in the sprints.

Interesting graph. If Sagan ever get's half of MC's  instinct he will be unstoppable.

 

Oh that is something to ponder over. Always thought Sagan's problem was power in the sprints, maybe he's just going too early as well but he's so powerful he can hold it long enough to get in the top 3..

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