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inCycle season review: Who is the best sprinter this year?

By Cycling News

published 26 August 2015

How have the peloton's fast men performed this year?

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André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) wins stage 2 at the Eneco Tour(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

Mark Cavendish (Etixx-Quickstep) (Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Marcel Kittel was 21st on his return to racing(Image credit: ASO)

Andre Greipel celebrates with his daughters winning stage 21 of the 2015 Tour de France

Mark Cavendish (Etixx-Quickstep) celebrates his first Tour de France stage win of the year(Image credit: Bettini Photo)

Who has been the best sprinter in the peloton this year? That’s what the inCycle panelists are debating in this video.

Marcel Kittel, widely expected to further assert himself as the dominant force in sprinting this year, has had a truly awful campaign. Illness and a lack of form have prevented him from building any momentum and he was left out of the Giant-Alpecin team for the Tour de France. His only win in a UCI race came in early August on the first stage of the Tour de Pologne.

Mark Cavendish, the man Kittel was supposed to be usurping as sprint king, has had a mixed season; the Manxman has plenty of wins to his name but not necessarily on the biggest stages. He won a stage at the Tour but would have hoped for more and there is still uncertainty hanging over him in that he does not know where he’ll be riding next term.

One man whose season has been an unqualified success is André Greipel, who, at the age of 33, has enjoyed his finest season to date. The German has 14 wins to his name and, after picking up a stage at the Giro d’Italia, he utterly dominated the Tour with four victories, including the final stage on the Champs Elysées.

The sprinters also came under discussion in the latest edition of the Cyclingnews podcast, in which Procycling editor Ed Pickering named Greipel as his rider of the week. You can listen below or subscribe to the Cyclingnews podcast on iTunes to receive each episode when it comes out.