Cycling: This year's Tour de France featured 16 professionals from Germany, 6 from Switzerland and 3 from Austria. Ultimately, five stage victories came about – all thanks to Marcel Kittel (Quick-Step Floors). But how did the other German-speaking professionals fare at the 2017 Tour de France? We took a closer look at the performance.
Marcel Kittel: An (almost) perfect Tour de France
Anyone who wins five stages in a Tour de France is one of the riders of the year. So the report for Marcel Kittel can only be positive. The spectators haven't seen such a confident sprinter for years. It was easy to talk about boredom, but that's definitely not Marcel Kittel's fault. The German did his job perfectly in the team and secured the longed-for stage victories. It seemed to be a perfect Tour de France. But then she came 17st stage and Marcel Kittel had to leave the Tour of France prematurely. Only a fall could stop him. This robbed him of the chance to even win seven or more sections and set a new record. Even more bitter is the fact that he was denied the green jersey due to his retirement. But Marcel Kittel is guaranteed to come back again next year.
André Greipel & Tony Martin: Two winners without a win
While Marcel Kittel won stage after stage, one of his biggest competitors was left behind. André Greipel (Lotto Soudal) was simply not allowed to win a part of the Tour de France this year. Since 2011, the German has always cheered at least once at the Grand Boucle. 2017 wasn't to be on the Champs-Elysées either after winning there the previous two years. It also didn't work out for Tony Martin (Katusha-Alpecin). The time trial world champion really wanted to secure the yellow jersey at the home game in Düsseldorf, but in the end he slid past victory on the rain-soaked track. Even on the penultimate stage in Marseille it wasn't enough in the fight against the clock. His teammates - like André Greipel's colleagues - remained without a win on all 21 stages. So it was a tour to forget!
Emanuel Buchmann: Secretly, quietly and quietly in 15th place
Germany finally has a ranking driver again! Although Emanuel Buchmann (Bora-hansgrohe) is not yet in a position to win a Grand Tour, he still managed to finish 2017th in the 15 Tour de France. After Andreas Klöden in 2012, no other German professional has achieved such a high ranking. Emanuel Buchmann was often not seen on TV. The 24-year-old held back a little shyly on most of the stages and at some point simply fell out of the rear in the mountains. Emanuel Buchmann tried to sneak into a breakaway group on at least two sections, but unfortunately it didn't work out. When he was up there he didn't have the legs to win a day. But this could definitely become something in the coming years. In the junior classification, he secured third place behind Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) and Louis Meintjes (UAE). It shouldn't be the white jersey, but maybe Emanuel Buchmann would like to try on the yellow jersey in a few years.
Hard-working helpers with varying yields
Very few riders in the peloton of a Tour de France can be counted among the absolute winners. A good team only works if it is supported by strong helpers. Most of the Germans, Swiss and Austrians had to do help as well. This even applied to well-known professionals such as John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Mathias Frank (Ag2r). They had to work for their captains for three weeks - with varying degrees of success. While Simon Geschke (Sunweb) was able to celebrate numerous successes from his teammates, there was very little to laugh about for Marco Haller and Rick Zabel (Katusha-Alpecin) and Marcel Sieberg (Lotto Soudal). The Tour de France was definitely successful for the German-speaking teams. Sunweb won two classification jerseys and four stages, Bora-hansgrohe was able to celebrate two victories despite the early retirement of Peter Sagan and Rafal Majka.