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Watching Marcel Kittel soar away from the rest of the field in Bergerac for his fourth victory of this 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France, there was the feeling that there were two different races taking place. According to 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:John Degenkolb, who mopped🅷 up the remains a bike length behind his compatriot, you could make that two different planets.

"He was unbeatable today," Degenkolb told reporters after a warm-down outside the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Trek-Segafredo team bus.

"He's just super talented, andꦐ at the moment he'sꦆ just very very good. At the moment I don't really see someone who can beat him man against man."

Degenkolb, still in the hunt for a first stage😼 win at the Tour de France, could only raise his tally of runner-up finis▨hes to six. In the end, though, there was hardly a hint of disappointment. As he explained, such was the strength of Kittel, it was a small victory simply to remain in his slipstream.

"Going into the last kilometre I thought it was over, but then a small miracle happened, with Marcel overtaking me on the right side, and I could follow his wheel. I had to do 🐈a full sprint just to stay in the slipstream. That's what gave me the opportunity to get second in the end,"ꦿ said the Trek-Segafredo rider.

Despite the gulf in class, the Bergerac sprint gives Degenkolb a timely boost in what has been a trying Tour. A fifth place in Nuits-Saint-Georges was his best previous result in an opening week replete with sprint opportunities. ♔He has been affected by a shoulder injury he sustained in the stage 3 crash that saw both Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish exit the race, albeit for different reasons.

"I have a lot of pain. On the bike is the most comfortable at the moment but I still cannot really lift my arm, I cannot get bidons from the side of the road, I cannot get musettes – my teammates have to get it for my because I can't put any pressure on the shoulder," he expl🅰ained.

"Of course today is a good boost of confideꦐnce. In the end, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to go behind Marcel. I think if he wasn't in that position I wouldn't have been able to come to t💝he front.

"For me, that's the best place so far in this Tour. I'll try to fight tomorrow and the days after. My shape is good and I can look p🎃retty optimistically to the next stages."

That optimism, however, comes with a substantial qualifier in the form of the towering – both physically an๊d metaphorically – figure of Kittel.

"The Tour is still the Tour, and anything can happen," Degenkolb countered. With a further four possible sprint opportunities between here and Paris, it's a mantra he and the other sprint protagonists might find themselv൲es repeating, though perhaps more in hope than with any true conviction.