Originally Posted by Eater Sundae:
“Clearly their tactics didn't work on the day, but that can be said about every team except Vino's.
If they had made up an 8 man train at the front, they would most probably have carried Greipel & Cavendish to the final sprint. Maybe they thought that GB would be able to provide too good a lead off for Cav, and so Greipel would lose, and decided that better tactics would be to force GB to do most of the work, so they would be too tired to properly lead out Cav. Any resultant sprint would then be more of a lottery, and Greipel might fancy his chances a bit more.
German riders did a bit, but not much, first Martin, then someone else (I've forgotten who), but obviously not enough”
The German team were no match for our riders. Team GB had four riders from the same team, first and second on the Tour, plus a Tour stage winner and solid experienced team rider in Millar to support Cavendish. What did Greipel have in his armoury?
It is a lot easier to look comfortable in the wheels than driving the peloton forward after following Team GB's pace. It is not clear, had it come to the sprint, whether they had the ability to lead out Greipel. In the end Greipel came in a group ahead of the rest of his team.