Greipel has often been the bridesmaid to Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep), Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) as they won the most important sprints in professional cycling, but now he seems to have the best finishing sprint. He seems able to produce more power, reach a higher finishing speed and read the sprint better than his rivals.
Greipel dug deep to survive and stay in contact with the front group in the hilly opening 75 kilometres and after the 7.9km Col d’Escrinet climb, so he could then use his sprinting skills.
“It was a pretty tough stage, we were suffering from kilometre zero until the end,” Greipel explained in his usual gentle Gorilla persona that is so different to when he is sprinting to the line.
Get The Leadout Newsletter
The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!
Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.
