Marcel Kittel

Marcel Kittel

Kittel at the 2013 Tour Down Under
Personal information
Full name	Marcel Kittel
Born	(1988-05-11) 11 May 1988 Arnstadt, Germany
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)[1]
Weight	82 kg (181 lb)[1]
Team information
Current team	Giant-Shimano
Discipline	Road and track
Role	Rider
Rider type	Sprinter
Amateur team(s)
2007–2010	Thüringer Energie Team
Professional team(s)
2011–	Skil-Shimano
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France 4 individual stages (2013) Vuelta a España 1 individual stage (2011) One-day races and Classics Scheldeprijs (2012, 2013) Omloop van het Houtland (2012) Münsterland Giro (2012)
Infobox last updated on 7 February 2014

Marcel Kittel (born 11 May 1988) is a German racing cyclist, who rides for Giant-Shimano.^[2]

Born in Arnstadt, Kittel made his Tour de France debut in 2012 when he was selected as leader of his team for the 2012 Tour de France, where he would compete for stage wins and the green jersey.^[3] However he withdrew an hour into stage 5, after suffering from a viral infection of the stomach and intestines from stage 2, the fourth retirement of the 2012 Tour.^[4] He bounced back in the beginning of August, when he won the first stage of the Eneco Tour, the first event in his return to racing. The only rider who was competitive with him in the final bunch sprint was Frenchman Arnaud Démare (FDJ-BigMat).^[5] After bad luck struck on stage 3, where he suffered a flat tyre with 5 kilometres to go,^[6] Kittel prevailed again on stage 4. He congratulated his teammates Tom Veelers and John Degenkolb for their work in the final kilometers, as they sheltered him from the wind before he propelled himself toward the finish line and the victory.^[7] At the end of 2012, as the cycling world was affected by the Lance Armstrong doping case revelations, Kittel took a vocal anti-doping stance by stating that he was "sick" of the people who still defended Armstrong in the cycling community.^[8]

In 2013, Kittel's team Argos-Shimano was promoted to the first division of the sport and was granted World Tour status.^[9] Kittel won the first stage of the Tour of Oman in a massive sprint, his first success of the season.^[10] In the 2013 Tour de France, Kittel found incredible success as a sprinter. He finished first in the Tour's first stage in Corsica and took the inaugural Maillot jaune of the 100th Tour de France. He lost the yellow jersey the next day, however, to Jan Bakelants of RadioShack-Leopard. Kittel was not done in this Tour, though, he would go on to win the 10th, and 12th stages. On the final stage, Kittel triumphed again on the Champs-Élysées; ending the four-year winning streak of Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider Mark Cavendish. He would finish 4th in the Green Jersey points standings.

Palmarès

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marcel Kittel.

• Marcel Kittel profile at Cycling Archives
• Marcel Kittel profile at Skil-Shimano