Marcel Kittel of Germany and Team Giant-Shimano, left, celebrates his victory in stage one of the Tour de France. Photograph: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
With visions of Mark Cavendish's crash flashing through most British minds, the Harrogate stage winner, Marcel Kittel, had a warning for over-enthusiastic spectators on the second and third stages of the Tour's Grand Départ. 'There were moments when I was thinking now we will crash for sure, because the spectators were taking pictures and didn't notice we were in the road.'
At one point the newly crowned race leader said: 'There were a lot of spectators in the middle of the road, then suddenly they all moved back and left a man in a wheelchair. It's an amazing crowd here but they need to stay off the road and look out for themselves and their children.'
Kittel had observed in the buildup to the start in Yorkshire that he would be intrigued to see how safe the roads were because, when he and his team reconnoitred the opening stages, he had become aware of how in places the dry-stone walls left little space for spectators. Kittel's team-mate Roy Curvers took a different view of the beauties of Yorkshire, however, saying on Twitter: 'Big thank you to Postman Pat! Because i watched him during my youth i knew everything about these roads with stone walls on the side.'
Kittel's stage win here was the fifth of his career and it was far tougher, he said, than his first win in the opening stage of last year's Tour in Corsica. 'There was a lot of pressure on me; it wasn't easy in the runup to the start because there were a lot of eyes on our team. Our plan was to control the race and keep the pace as easy as possible together with the other sprinters' teams. In the finish, if the crash didn't happen, Mark Cavendish would have been there for sure, so we were lucky in that way but I'm very disappointed for him and I hope we will see him tomorrow at the start.'
His Giant-Shimano squad have developed a technique in which they leave it to the very last moment to begin their lead-out, meaning that they can hit the front of the race at a far higher speed than other teams; in Harrogate they hung back for a good 2km while Cavendish's Omega‑Pharma made the pace before Kittel was launched towards the line.
'We stuck to the plan and stayed very cool,' said Kittel, who also won the first two road race stages of the Giro d'Italia when it started in Belfast in May. 'The race worked out exactly how we wanted it. It was important to stay in front on the small roads and we did that. I'm proud because it felt much harder than last year.'
The sprints on this Tour have a competitive look, with Bryan Coquard of France already in the mix alongside Peter Sagan and Kittel, while André Greipel of Germany and the newly crowned French champion, Arnaud Démare, are out of the reckoning here. Ominously, however, Kittel added that he is in similar shape to last year when he landed four stage wins. His rivals have been warned.
Post By http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/05/marcel-kittel-tour-de-france-crowd-need-stay-off-roads
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