Tour de France 2017: Marcel Kittel wins sprint finish with Mark Cavendish fourth

Marcel Kittel has now won 10 Tour de France stages

Germany's Marcel Kittel won a sprint finish to take the second stage of the Tour de France as Britain's Geraint Thomas retained the yellow jersey.

Defending champion Chris Froome crashed in the wet conditions 30km from the end, but finished without losing any of the advantage he gained over his rivals on stage one.

Mark Cavendish was "happy" to finish fourth after a bout of glandular fever.

Thomas, who crashed along with Froome, leads Stefan Kung by five seconds.

The Welshman, who won the opening time trial on Saturday and finished in the peloton on Sunday, said: "We were all in a decent position, but a few guys came past us pretty quickly and slid and we all just went down.

"We got up pretty quickly though. Anything can happen and I wouldn't take anything for granted. Tomorrow is another day and we will be doing all we can for Froome."

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Crashes 'unavoidable'

Froome spent much of the day sheltering the peloton but the crash highlighted the unpredictable nature of the race

Three-time champion Froome was one of a number of riders involved in the crash as the peloton came off a roundabout during the 203.5km ride from Dusseldorf to Liege, Belgium.

He was paced back to the peloton by former world champion and Team Sky team-mate Michal Kwiatkowski but then immediately raised his hand, indicating to his team car that something was wrong.

He lost more time changing his bike but Kwiatkowski again waited to help Froome catch up.

Asked if he had injured himself, Froome replied: "No. I just lost a little bit of skin from my backside.

"That's the nature of the race. We know in slippery conditions like that, every time the race comes on there's a big risk something could happen and today there was just a touch of wheels, or someone slid just a few wheels ahead of me, and at those speeds you just can't avoid it.

"I think a few of us went down but thankfully everybody's OK and got to the finish all right without losing any time to our rivals, so that's the main thing."

Froome remains sixth, 12 seconds behind Thomas, but crucially 35 seconds ahead of Richie Porte and 36 clear of Nairo Quintana, two of his main rivals for the overall win.

Cavendish content with fourth

Cavendish gave an honest assessment of his first big sprint at the Tour after missing two months of the season with glandular fever and only returning to competitive racing at the Tour of Slovenia in June.

"It's as I expected, I'm happy with that," he said. "Six weeks training and fourth on a stage of the Tour. You always want to win but fourth on a Tour stage is a lot better than I expected.

"I was on the ideal wheel in the end but when Kittel went I was sprinting in his wheel and there was no way I could go past him.

"I didn't feel like I had power in my legs. I got where I was by jumping on other wheels to get up."

Kittel in tears after win

The emotion poured out of Kittel after winning the 10th Tour stage of his career

Kittel, who edged out French champion Arnaud Demare and countryman Andre Greipel to win, immediately broke down in tears.

"I'm super happy I got this victory," he said. "It was an incredible start in Germany and it would be wrong to say I had no expectation or pressure. I wanted this win and it was a big goal to start in Germany and win the stage."

A 10-second time bonus for winning the stage lifted Kittel to third in the overall standings, six seconds behind Thomas.

Monday's third stage from Verviers to Longwy is 212.5km as the race enters France for the first time this year and finishes with an uphill drag that should rule out the sprinters and could see Thomas retain the race lead.

Stage three of this year's race features a 1.6km ascent to the finish in Longwy

There will be live text commentary of stage three on the BBC Sport website from 11:00 BST, with Radio 5 live Sports Extra coverage from 14:30.

Stage two results

1. Marcel Kittel (Ger/Quick-Step Floors) 4hrs 37mins 06secs

2. Arnaud Demare (Fra/FDJ) same time

3. Andre Greipel (Ger/Lotto-Soudal)

4. Mark Cavendish (GB/Dimension Data)

5. Dylan Groenewegen (Ned/Team Lotto NL-Jumbo)

6. Sonny Colbrelli (Ita/Bahrain)

7. Ben Swift (GB/UAE Team Emirates)

8. Nacer Bouhanni (Fra/Cofidis)

9. Michael Matthews (Aus/Sunweb)

10. Peter Sagan (Svk/BORA)

General classification after stage two

1. Geraint Thomas (GB/Team Sky) 4hrs 53mins 10secs

2. Stefan Kung (Swi/BMC Racing) +5secs

3. Marcel Kittel (Ger/Quick-Step) +6secs

4. Vasil Kiryienka (Blr/Team Sky) +7secs

5. Matteo Trentin (Ita/Quick-Step) +10secs

6. Chris Froome (GB/Team Sky) +12secs

7. Jos van Emden (Ned/LottoNL) +15secs

8. Michal Kwiatkowski (Pol/Team Sky) Same time

9. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor/Dimension Data) +16secs

10. Nikias Arndt (Ger/Sunweb) Same time

Selected:

26. Simon Yates (GB/Orica-Scott) +37secs

44. Richie Porte (Aus/BMC Racing) +47secs

48. Nairo Quintana (Col/Movistar +48secs

56. Romain Bardet (Fra/AG2R) +51secs

59. Fabio Aru (Ita/Astana) +52secs

62. Alberto Contador (Spa/Trek-Segafredo) +54secs