It’s super sprinter Marcel Kittel’s 24th birthday today and I say: all hail the god of the Argonauts!
As I’m not the type to do in-depth analysis on sprinters (I leave that to Tim), I’ve gone down the more visual route. Celebrate the day with a snack while watching our Argonaut film festival!
Shimano TV made this little film of our hero:
Marcel Kittel kept his cool – and his balance – to win the 100th edition of the sprinters’ semi-Classic Scheldeprijs. The 23-year old German turned on the power in the final 150 metres to edge out Tyler Farrar and Theo Bos in a treacherous finish which saw a number of crashes. The win was Kittel’s fifth of the season, but the first for the newly unveiled Argos-Shimano team (formerly known as Project 1t4i).
Often overlooked due to its midweek slot between the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix, the Scheldeprijs is a rare opportunity for the pure sprinters to hold sway over the hard-men of the peloton during Classics season. Continue reading
Welcome to our preview of what’s happening in the world of road cycling in April. With the first of this year’s three Grand Tours, the Giro d’Italia, just around the corner, this is a busy month for the professional peloton, featuring no fewer than seven WorldTour events – five one-day Classics (including three of the five ‘monuments’) and two six-day stage races – comprising exactly a quarter of the 28 WorldTour races for 2012. Continue reading