The king is dead, long live the king. By the time you are reading this, German sprinting sensation Marcel Kittel will most likely have claimed his fourth stage win of this year’s Tour de France.
If he has, that is a remarkable four out of six stages and he will have equalled his stage-win haul of last year.
If he hasn’t, then kudos to whoever has beaten him, because at the moment the Giant-Shimano rider is mauling the opposition.
Say what you like about him having no competition, you can only beat who is racing to the line with you, and Kittel has done that superbly. Mark Cavendish might have made it harder for the German, but we all know what happened there. The Manx Missile honed in on the wrong target and now finds himself watching from a hospital bed while his heir apparent reaps the rewards.
In fact, one could argue that Kittel is the heir apparent no longer. Seven or eight Tour stage wins (depending on last night’s result) in the last two editions, with the potential for that number to grow over the next two weeks, firmly entrenches Kittel as the new King of the Fastmen.
And he hasn’t needed to intimidate with overtly aggressive riding or erratic sprinting to achieve his new-found deity. He intimidates with sheer size and power alone. He is taller and heavier than compatriot Andre Greipel, he towers over Cavendish, and he makes Bryan Coquard look dwarf-like.
But most importantly of all, he is faster than everybody else. And don’t they all know it!
You only need to watch a replay of the bunch finish at the end of Stage 4 for proof. After a super fast, roller-coaster approach through Lille’s maze of city streets, the big guns found themselves spread across the road approaching the line.
Australia’s Mark Renshaw, chock full of confidence following a third placing behind Kittel and Peter Sagan the day before, had been led out brilliantly by his Omega Pharma-Quickstep teammates. But when he realised that the breath he could feel on the back of his neck belonged to Kittel he was like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
The last place Renshaw wanted Kittel was on his wheel. Now Renshaw doesn’t lack for a yard in pace, on his day he is as fast as anyone. But on this day he was beaten before the sprint even began in earnest because of the mere presence of the big German.
It totally threw the Australian off his game and he ended up soft pedalling to the line, unwilling to be caught up in the argy-bargy of the final push for victory. Seventh was the best he could muster when so much more beckoned.
That stage highlighted what a fine specimen Kittel is. Head-on photographs of the final sprint show a talented bunch of riders pushing hard for the line. They are all there. Alexander Kristoff, Arnaud Demare, Sagan, the whippet-like Coquard, Greipel and Renshaw.
But front and centre is Kittel. He is a picture of raw power and energy, drawing the eye, reducing the others to mere bit-part players. The look on Greipel’s face says it all. It is the look of a beaten man, perhaps one who knows he will continue to be beaten over the coming days with not a thing he can do about it.
Kittel is in the form of his life. His condition is perfect, his confidence sky rocketing, his self-belief better than ever before. Couple that with a set of legs that can spin the biggest of gears faster than anyone else currently on the pro circuit, and you have one brute of a sprinter.
Perhaps, in time, it will be Kittel and not Cavendish who final overtakes Eddie Merckx’s Tour stage win record. That stands at 34 victories. Cav sits on 25. At the time of writing Kittel has seven (eight if he won last night), with at least another four opportunities to come. He could quite easily be sitting on 10-plus career stage wins by the completion of this Tour.
The king is dead, long live the king.
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