Marcel Kittel (Giant-Shimano) showed his sprint rivals another clean pair of cleats on Monday, taking his second 2014 Tour de France stage win in three days - and the sixth of his career
After the German's Giant-Shimano team had put in the work to bring the peloton into The Mall, Kittel opened up his sprint in the final 500 metres to take the victory in front of Buckingham Palace.
Such was Kittel's pace that points classification leader Peter Sagan (Cannondale) looked like he was struggling to stay on his wheel, let alone pass him. Sagan finished second, with Mark Cavendish stand-in Mark Renshaw (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) in third.
Soon after the stage start in Cambridge, Jean-Marc Bideau (Bretagne-Seche Environnement) and Jan Barta (NetApp-Endura) broke free from the peloton. The duo opened up a gap of around three minutes, but their time advantage was kept firmly in check by the peloton throughout the day.
After Barta put in one last-ditch attack to try and distance Bideau in the final 10km, the pair were both caught by the bunch with 6km to go.
A spell of rain towards the end of the stage had made some of the roads around London slippery, and as the peloton wound its way past the House of Parliament towards the Mall there was a crash which again held up a fair proportion of riders. It appeared that Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) was held up momentary by the incident, and he finished 23rd.
Race leader Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) stayed out of trouble to retain his overall lead after Sinday's stage win in Sheffield. He leads Sagan by two seconds, with Michael Albasini (Orica-GreenEdge) moving up from fourth to third, also at two seconds.
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Defending Tour champion Chris Froome (Sky) maintains his fifth place overall.
Despite Kittel's two stage wins, Sagan still leads the points classification with 117 points to Kittel's 90. Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis) kept the King of the Mountains lead on a day when there were no classified climbs.
A swift pack-up after today's stage will see the race leave behind a highly successful opening three days in Britain and travel back to its motherland. A relatively flat stage four from Le Touquet-Paris-Plage to Lille Métropole over 163.5km will greet them.
Results
Tour de France 2014, stage three: Cambridge to London, 155km
