After early breakaway duo Yoann Offredo (Wanty - Groupe Gobert) and Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro) were reeled in inside the last 10 kilometres of stage 10, the sprint trains took to the fore to set up a high-speed finale.
Lotto Soudal led onto the finishing straight for André Greipel and Kittel had to make up ground starting a long ways back, but once he got up to speed, none of his rivals could even come close to matching him. The 29-year-old German took a convincing win ahead of John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) to surpass Erik Zabel as the German with the most career Tour de France stage victories.
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