Cycling: The 2014 Tour de France is history. And it ended on the Champs-Elysées in Paris the way it began three weeks ago. Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) celebrated his fourth victory of the day and repeated his previous year's success on the boulevard in front of the Arc de Triomphe. The Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) secured the overall victory.
The last stage of the Tour of France began as a triumph for the Sicilian, as well as the other jersey wearers - Peter Sagan (Cannondale) in green as the best point, Rafal Majka (Tinkoff-Saxo) in the dotted jersey of the best climber and Thibaut Pinot (FDJ.fr ) as the best driver under the age of 25. The Italian Alessandro De Marchi (Cannondale) was honored as the most combative driver.
The race for the prestigious victory on the Champs-Elysées began with an attack by Sylvain Chavanel (IAM) with 50 kilometers to go. However, the Frenchman's attack was not very successful.
Jens Voigt's (Trek) speed increase looked better, he was able to quickly create a gap of 9 seconds and later received active support from Svein Tuft (Orica-GreenEdge) and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC).
The trio initially benefited from a fall of overall runner-up Jean Christophe Peraud (Ag2R-La Mondiale), which prompted Nibali to slow down in the field to allow the Frenchman to catch up again.
With Peraud back in the field, a group led by Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) brought it back up to the front runners. After that there were numerous other attacks, but only the attack by Richie Port (Sky), Michael Morkov (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Jose Serpa (Lampre-Merida) showed some success.
Porte stayed at the top for the longest time. In a fast final he was only caught seven kilometers from the finish. After that, it was the Lotto Belisol team around the German champion André Greipel that set the pace. Two kilometers before the finish, Giant-Shimano finally took over. John Degenkolb led Marcel Kittel to the home straight.
Here the Norwegian Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) looked like the sure winner. However, Kittel got the second breath and prevailed with a strong punch in the last few meters. The man from Arnstadt repeated his previous year's success in Paris and again celebrated four stage wins. Together with Tony Martin and André Greipel, he increased the German record to a total of seven one-day victories - a third of all stage wins this year went to German drivers.
In this regard, the NetApp-Endura team was successful in the overall ranking. The seventh overall place of the Czech Leopold König was hardly expected, even in the wildest of dreams.
Vincenzo Nibali secured the overall victory. The Sicilian drove a total of 19 days in the yellow jersey and is the first Italian since Marco Pantani in 1998 to win the Tour of France. Second and third places go to France with Peraud and Pinot – that hasn't happened for a long time and, like Nibali's victory, is a good sign in many respects.
Result
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Total
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