Tour of California: Kittel wins opening stage in Sacramento

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Marcel Kittel finished off the day-long efforts of his Quick-Step Floors team in style, nailing the bunch sprint in Sacramento to win the stage and first race leader's jersey over world champion Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe). Elia Viviani (Team Sky) was third.

Team Sky took control of the race as it headed onto the final circuits, setting a steady if not blistering pace through the tricky circuit. But as the other teams fought for position, Quick-Step sat back, watching and waiting for just the right moment to pounce.

That came with half a lap to go when the Belgian team came storming up to the front, and although they briefly relented control inside the final kilometer, they kicked again to deliver Kittel to perfect winning position on the long finishing straightaway.

"I’m very happy how intelligent and also strong my team worked in the end," Kittel said of his win. "Chapeau to everyone for the great lead out. It was really nice, promising also for the next week. We are all very happy to start the Tour of California like that."

Kittel and Quick-Step almost made the win look easy, and the German fastman said it was not an unexpected way to start the race.

"It’s not a surprise that maybe the beginning of the race was not super intense," he said. "It was a really easy stage when you look at the profile. Some teams tried to go in the crosswinds after around 80km, but nothing happened; the wind was not strong enough and the direction was not good enough. So in the end it came down to a sprint."

How it unfolded

The 167km opening stage started in front of the California state capitol and finished there after a figure-eight jaunt south. The stage featured no KOMs, but it did have two intermediate sprints at 121.5km and at 156.5km when the riders entered the 3.5km finishing circuits in Sacramento.

It didn’t take long for the breakaway to form on the flat roads outside of town, with BMC Racing's Floris Gerts, UnitedHealthcare's Jonny Clarke, Novo Nordisk's Charles Planet and Jelly Belly-Maxxis' Ben Wolfe escaping the bunch and building a lead of two minutes rather quickly.

The gap went up to 2:30 at its maximum point, but the peloton was feeling stingy and kept the advantage pegged at 1:45 throughout most of the escape.

Katusha-Alpecin and Quick-Step Floors took control of the chase with Katusha sending a rider to the front and Quick-Step massing behind him, eventually throwing several riders into the chase as well.

The action heated up briefly when crosswinds that swept across the agricultural fields outside of Sacramento pushed the peloton into echelons, but the winds apparently weren’t strong enough to create havoc as the groups stayed mostly together.

As the race turned back toward Sacramento, however, the crosswinds increased and the race became more animated, with several teams going to the front to try and blow things apart.

The increased pace also started eating into the escapees’ lead, which was down to just 40 seconds with 67km remaining. Sagan’s Bora-Hansgrohe team and the Dutch LottoNL-Jumbo team went to the front, but the peloton eased up before the feedzone and let the gap go out again after having the break in sight.

The leaders had 1:20 with just over 48km remaining and just 5km to the first intermediate sprint, where Gerts took top honours and the three-second time bonus. Quick-Step and Katusha retook the front again, and the gap was down to 40 seconds with about 40km to go.

The peloton had to throttle back the chase a bit to avoid catching the leader too early, but the gap continued to come down. Sensing an imminent catch, Wolfe attacked his three breakaway companions, who didn’t react to the move and let him dangle out front. The Jelly Belly rider stuck with it, pouring everything into the move.

Wolfe’s adventure ended when the others pulled him back with about 19km to go and with an advantage of 40 seconds over the bunch. The quartet started the first of the three closing circuits together, but with the bunch bearing down on the wide roads leading into town and the circuit, their chances didn’t look good.

The quartet held a 10-second gap as they rode under the 1km to go banner, but they faced three circuits after that and were swallowed up by the peloton during the ensuing lap.

From there, Sky, Bora, Quick-Step, Cofidis and Katusha started to fight for position, with Quick-Step eventually gaining the upper hand and launching Kittel to his eighth win of the season and the first leader’s jersey of the 2017 Tour of California.

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