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, East Germany
Height	1.88 m (6 ft 2 in)[1]
Weight	82 kg (181 lb; 12.9 st)[1]
Team information
Current team	Giant-Alpecin
Discipline	Road
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 8 individual stages (2013, 2014) Vuelta a España 1 individual stage (2011) Giro d'Italia 2 individual stages (2014) One-day races and Classics Scheldeprijs (2012, 2013, 2014) Omloop van het Houtland (2012) Münsterland Giro (2012)
Infobox last updated on 7 January 2015

Marcel Kittel (born 11 May 1988) is a German racing cyclist, who rides for Giant-Alpecin.^[2] As a junior, he specialised in time trials, even winning a bronze medal in the World Championships for cyclists aged under 23. When he became a professional in 2011, he specialised in bunch sprints, and he has won stages in each of the three Grand Tours.

Career

2012 season

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]

2013 season

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.

2014 season

Kittel started the 2014 season early by winning the People's Choice Classic, followed by three consecutive stage wins at the Dubai Tour. On the third stage, he survived two short climbs near the end of the race and won the sprint of a greatly reduced group.^[11] In April he won the 2014 Scheldeprijs for the third time in a row, being the first person in history to achieve this. In the Giro d'Italia, Kittel won stages 2 and 3 before abandoning the race between stage 3 and 4. As he did in 2013, Kittel won the opening stage at the Tour de France and took the yellow jersey, but lost it to Vincenzo Nibali on stage 2. However, Kittel won both stages 3 and 4. He also won the final stage 21 on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, as he did in 2013. In September, Kittel won the opening stage of the Tour of Britain by outsprinting Nicola Ruffoni and Mark Cavendish.^[12] He also won the closing stage by outsprinting the same pair.^[13]

2015 season

In January, Kittel won the People's Choice Classic for the second year in a row in Australia.^[14] As of the end of the month of April, he disputed only two UCI races: the Tour Down Under and the Tour of Qatar. He failed to participate in any sprint on those races, as he was plagued by a virus. His return was scheduled at the Tour de Yorkshire,^[15] but he abandoned after riding 100 kilometers in the first stage.^[16]

Palmarès

Source:^[17]

Grand Tour record

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marcel Kittel.

• Official website
• Marcel Kittel profile at Cycling Archives
• Marcel Kittel profile at Giant-Shimano