Kittel is officially the winner of Tour de France stage seven after impatiently waiting for the tour organizers to give the final result. The reason why the name of the today’s stage winner wasn’t immediately clear was because Quick-Step Floors’ Kittel, along with Dimensions Data’s Edvald Boasson had only a 6-millimeter difference between each other when crossing the finish line.
213.5 kilometers for a 0.0003 second gap on the finish line! Here is the full summary of stage 7! #TDF2017 pic.twitter.com/PB48iTTGBO
— Le Tour de France (@LeTour) July 7, 2017
Today’s winner of the seventh stage which took place in Troues to Nuits Saint Georges, was only made public after the Tissot timing system was able to clock the real difference between the riders who seemed to cross the line at the same exact time. The difference they calculated to be was only 0.0003 seconds, giving the victory to the German rider.
This means, Kittel has finally reached Erik Zabel’s record of the German rider to have the largest number of stage wins in Tour de France.
A tight victory
It took Kittel (QST) another strong push right on the line to win his 3rd @LeTour stage with the slightest margin: 0.0003 seconds.#TDFdata pic.twitter.com/pfRNPtImNj
— letourdata (@letourdata) July 7, 2017
When asked about the result, Kittel said: “First I heard that I had won, but then someone said it wasn’t official and anything could happen. I regretted that I had already celebrated a bit and I could end up being runner-up. Anyway, I’ve given everything I had so I had no regrets, whatever the outcome would’ve been.
He also added to be super excited and happy for his and his team’s achievement.
When he saw the finish photo indicating the not-so-visible difference between the two riders, Kittel admitted to feel sorry for Boasson Hagen to lose the first place by only six millimeters.
“It was really close. Six millimeters decide over a lot of joy, or a big disappointment. I’m happy that I could throw my bike far enough to have six millimeters advantage. It’s definitely a record for me, to get such a close victory. It’s closer than the win over Bryan Coquard in Limoges last year.”
Currently, Kittel leads the point classification with 197 points. He has 15 points more than Démare.
