Tour de France: Marcel Kittel makes it four stage wins in Bergerac

Marcel Kittel continued his sprinting dominance at the Tour de France with a fourth stage win on Tuesday.

The Quick-Step Floors rider proved imperious in beating German compatriot John Degenkolb at the end of stage 10 in Bergerac, where Chris Froome finished safely in the pack to retain his overall lead.

Until the last 7km, the race had been led by breakaway riders Yoann Offredo (Wanty-Groupe Gobert) and Elie Gesbert (Fortuneo-Oscaro), who built a lead of up to six minutes but always looked like being pulled back.

Kittel appeared to drop back as the sprint began to unwind, but his kick inside the final 300m was far too much for any of his big rivals, including Andre Greipel who had earlier beaten Kittel at the intermediate sprint.

Greipel, whose Lotto Soudal squad had set him up to perfection, was simply unable to match Kittel in the closing stages and dropped out of the top 10 to finish a disappointing 12th.

Degenkolb came closest to Kittel but there was clear air between the two, while Dylan Groenewegen grabbed third place ahead of yet another German, Rudiger Selig.

Kittel had also won stages two, six and seven in the opening week of racing and now leads Michael Matthews by more than 100 points in the race for the green jersey.

Froome finished in 34th place, alongside his closest general classification rival Fabio Aru, who remains 18 seconds adrift of the Briton who is seeking his fourth Tour de France title.

He said: "It was quite a relaxed day as Tour de France stages go. There was a difference today from last week. Today everyone's just calmed down that little bit more.

"People are happy to sit a little bit further back at times and there is a huge difference in the feeling in the bunch. There weren't the same kind of stresses there were in the first week.

"This is the part of the race that I look forward to, where everything settles down and we get into the racing rather than it be a ball of nerves."

Stage 10 result:

1 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Quick-Step Floors 4hr 01m
2 John Degenkolb (Ger) Trek-Segafredo all same time
3 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Lotto NL-Jumbo
4 Rudiger Selig (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe
5 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha
6 Nacer Bouhanni (Fra) Cofidis
7 Dan McLay (Gbr) Fortuneo-Oscaro
8 Pieter Vanspeybrouck (Bel) Wanty-Groupe Gobert
9 Sonny Colbrelli (Ita) Bahrain Merida
10 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Dimension Data

Overall standings:

1 Chris Froome (Gbr) Team Sky 42hr 27min 28sec
2 Fabio Aru (Ita) Astana +18
3 Romain Bardet (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale +51
4 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Cannondale-Drapac +55
5 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Astana +1:37
6 Daniel Martin (Ire) Quick-Step Floors +1:44
7 Simon Yates (Gbr) Orica-Scott +2:02
8 Nairo Quintana (Col) Movistar +2:13
9 Mikel Landa (Esp) Team Sky +3:06
10 George Bennett (NZ) LottoNL-Jumbo +3:53