Marcel Kittel took his second stage win in the 8th edition of the Eneco Tour. He won Thursday’s fourth stage from Heers, Belgium to Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands in the same he way he won the opening stage: by winning a bunch sprint.
“It was very hard”, a still gasping Kittel said right after the finish. “At eight hundred meters from the line I was still in fifteenth position. Then Tom Veelers and John Degenkolb brought me forward. At five hundred meters I even had a short moment to rest. I don’t know how they exactly did that, but it was fantastic.”
Jurgen Roelandts, Giacomo Nizzolo and Tom Boonen were unable to keep up with Kittel’s sprint pace and finished second, third and fourth.
Kittel wanted to thank all of his other teammates. “It’s just incredible what they do for me. They support me one hundred percent. They bring bottles and they close down breakaways. I cannot thank them enough.”
After his abandon in the Tour de France Kittel could not ride his bike for two weeks. The Eneco Tour is his first race since. “I did not expect things to go so well. Although I have to say: winning the sprint may seem easy, but during the stage I suffered a lot.”
Kittel is again in possession of the points jersey. He already captured the red jersey after the opening stage, but lost it in the third stage after not being able to sprint for the win due to a flat tire in the final.
