After his second stage victory in the Critérium du Dauphiné, John Degenkolb (HTC-Highroad) has been compared to both Erik Zabel and Mark Cavendish by his sports director Brian Holm. The sprint on stage two was at the top of a fourth category climb, which was the kind of thing that Zabel specialised in, while stage four finished with a completely flat finishing straight, which Cavendish is the current undisputed master of.
"If you get one stage win in a tough race like this, it's pretty good, so taking three in a row is pretty amazing," said Holm. "John's confidence was really high after he took that uphill sprint against some real specialists in that kind of finish."
Stage four was the flattest of the race, with barely a speed bump to slow the peloton in the final 60km. Like most stages of its kind though, it was dominated by a breakaway, which the peloton pulled back in the final kilometres. With Degenkolb feeling good, HTC-Highroad was one of the teams that worked in order to ensure that the stage would finish in a sprint.
"So we kept it under control in the last few kilometres,” explained Holm, “putting a couple of guys on the front, with Jan Ghyselinck and Gatis Smukulis keeping the pace high."
Although his team had done a lot of the work to set up the sprint, there was no guarantee that Degenkolb would be able to finish it off. He was up against a number of more experienced riders like Garmin-Cervélo’s Tyler Farrar, Team Sky’s Edvald Boasson Hagen, and Saxo Bank-SunGard’s Juan Jose Haedo.
"There are some big name sprinters here,” said Holm, “and to tell the truth I wasn't too sure if John'd be able to match them on the flat as well as he had on the uphill.
"But it seems like we've got a guy who's got a little bit of Erik Zabel in him and a little bit of Mark Cavendish, and he did absolutely fine."
Degenkolb’s second stage win was HTC-Highroad’s third consecutive victory of the race, with Tony Martin winning the third stage time trial.