Marcel Kittel wins Tour de France stage 2 but only after a huge crash with about 30km remaining.
Dan Martin, Nicolas Roche through Tour de France stage 2
Dan Martin (QuickStep) and Nicolas Roche (BMC Racing) have come through the crashed marred stage of the Tour de France in one piece.
The pair were not among the fallers as a number of spills occurred in the main field on the 203.5km stage 2 from Düsseldorf to Liège.
With around 30km remaining there was a major pile-up in which pre Tour favourites Chris Froome (Team Sky), Richie Porte (BMC Racing) and Romain Bardet (Ag2r La Mondiale) were all involved.
However, they were able to get back on, aided a little when the bunch decided to knock off the pace as a sporting gesture to the fallers.
That allowed the early escape to stay clear perhaps a little longer than seemed possible at the time.
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In that move were Taylor Phinney (Cannondale-Drapac), Thomas Boudat (Direct Energie), Laurent Pichon (Fortuneo-Oscaro) and Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Gobert).
And while Phinney and Offredo would persist until just 1km remaining they were finally absorbed.
That paved the way for a bunch sprint won by Marcel Kittel; the German taking his 10th career stage win on the Tour de France.
He was riding disc brakes today and so became the first rider to win a Tour stage on discs.
Arnaud Demare (FDJ) was 2nd, with André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) in 3rd and Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) next.
Geraint Thomas (Team Sky), who won yesterday’s 14km TT in Düsseldorf, finished in the bunch and retained his race lead.
However, with a 10 second time bonus for winning, Kittel is now just 6 seconds behind the Welshman.
Roche was 99th and Dan Martin 113th. Both were in the peloton, finishing on the same time as Kittel.
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