Marcel Kittel wins final Dubai Tour stage and defends overall title
By Andy Charles
Last Updated: 04/02/17 12:20pm
Marcel Kittel claimed overall victory at the Dubai Tour by winning Saturday's final stage in a bunch sprint.
Defending champion Kittel (Quick-Step Floors) won three of the four stages which were able to be run in windy Dubai, the finale coming at the foot of Burj Khalifa, at 828m the world's tallest building.
The German won the opening two stages to claim the general classification lead and his only reverse came in stage three when he complained about being punched by Astana's Andriy Grivko.
His title defence could have been blown off course on Friday, when a medium mountain finish was scheduled to conclude on Hatta Dam, but storms forced a cancellation.of that stage.
And Kittel proved his early dominance of the sprinting ranks on Saturday with his third win of the week, this time beating Team Sky's Elia Viviani and Riccardo Minali (Astana).
Britain's Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) finished fourth ahead of Thursday's stage winner John Degenkolb (Trek Segafredo).
Degenkolb also took third place overall, 20 seconds behind Kittel and a couple of seconds adrift of Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo).
