Tour de France 2017: How to solve a problem like Marcel Kittel?

It was Kittel’s compatriot John Degenkolb who suggested on Tuesday that his fellow German was “unbeatable” in the kind of form he’s in. It was decent of Degenkolb to admit something that most of us had been thinking for a quite some time.

Just 11 stages into the 104th edition of the Tour, and Kittel has now won 45% of them. Had Peter Sagan not caused that crash in the final kilometre in Stage 4 – before his dust-up with Mark Cavendish – then Kittel would probably have been victorious in Vittel, too.

If many of the stage routes of this Tour been repetitive – 200+ kilometres, one or two fourth-category climb, and the sight of Julien Vermote, Lars Bak and Tiago Machado on the front of the peloton – then the results have followed a near-identical pattern.

Kittel's five victories is the second largest individual haul in a single Tour this century – outdone only by the absent Mark Cavendish back in 2009. But with at least two more possible sprint finales ahead of the concluding bunch gallop on the Champs-Elysees, Kittel has ample chance to draw level with Cav. Heck, he could even draw level with the record eight wins won by Charles Pelissier, Eddy Merckx and Freddy Maertens.

All this is clearly music to Marcel’s ears – not to mention those of his Quick-Step Floors team. But Kittel has become a thorn in the side of all the other sprinters and their respective teams.

How about, by not trying exactly the same thing every day...

Which grizzled cycling legend was it – Merckx or Bernard Hinault, perhaps? – who said something along the lines of insanity being the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Come to think of it, it was probably Albert Einstein.

Well, let me tell the peloton something: it’s not rocket science that what you’re doing every day is not working. In fact, you don’t need to take a lesson from the father of modern theoretical physics to surmise that you’re barking up the wrong tree, waiting for apples to fall when there are only bitter lemons.

Actually, forget Einstein and mixed metaphors – just listen to Yoann Offredo, a man in the know. After Kittel won his fourth stage in Bergerac on Tuesday at a canter, the French rider – who had been in the break most of the day, alongside the race's youngest rider in Elie Gesbert of minnows Fortuneo-Oscaro – issued an expletive-riddled call to arms live on TV.

The basic nub of his anger was that not enough riders were trying to get in breaks – and it was left to the smaller teams, such as his Wanty-Groupe Gobert outfit – to plough a pitiful furrow while the other WorldTour teams kowtowed to Quick-Step and let the inevitable play out.

“I’m pissed off – not just for myself but for the viewers on TV,” Offredo said – instantly endearing himself to those millions who had tuned in to watch live aerial coverage of chateaux in the Dordogne spliced with the odd shot of two escapees being pursued by a muzzled peloton, with the same cast on the front keeping to a script seen regularly since Dusseldorf.

Offredo implored other conscripts to come and meet him at the Wanty bus at 9am to discuss going over the top and pushing through the parapet of the peloton during Wednesday’s stage to Pau.

There can’t have been many takers at the rendez-vous: when the day’s break formed in the opening kilometre of the stage, it included just three riders – and one of them was Offredo’s team-mate Frederik Backaert (who has now clocked up more than 550 breakaway kilometres in this year’s Tour – to no avail).

But why didn’t anyone else get in the mix? Groups of two and three riders are almost as doomed as a solo break – as shown by Offredo’s team-mate Guillaume van Kiersbulck (ironically on the last day Kittel didn’t win a sprint).

It had become abundantly clear before the weekend that the sprints are not working for the likes of Andre Greipel, Nacer Bouhanni and Alexander Kristoff. So why aren’t Lotto Soudal, Cofidis and Katusha mixing things up and throwing a rider in the breaks?

Given the way they’re sprinting, why aren’t Greipel and Bouhanni not sprinting fervently in kilometre zero simply to get in the breaks?

And what of these teams who have lost their main riders – teams such as BMC and FDJ? Why aren’t they trying to do something different? They have nothing to lose. BMC should be chomping at the bit to save their Tour - and FDJ should be trying more than a Rudy Molard attack on a Cat.4 climb.

Take Bora-Hansgrohe, for instance. They’ve lost both Sagan and Rafal Majka. On Tuesday they tried with Rudiger Selig in the sprint: he did well, but he won’t ever beat Kittel. So, what did they do next? They put Maciej Bodnar in the break – and look: the Pole came within 242 metres of pulling it off.

More teams should be doing this – or at least making it harder for Quick-Step Floors during these long, interminable flat stages. A group of two riders from wildcard teams won't stand a chance. But a group of 10 experienced or hungry riders would have a better chance at defying the peloton – or at the very least, they would tire Quick-Step out in the chase.

Because one thing is clear: no one is going to beat Marcel Kittel in a sprint. The man is so at ease with himself and confident of his powers that he’s comparing sprinting to Tetris – sounding like a Teutonic Taylor Phinney in the process. In short: he’s playing with his rivals, using them as mere building blocks he can move around at his behest.

Meanwhile, we have Greipel admitting how “embarrassed” he is, Kristoff not even making the top ten, and Bouhanni having a hissy fit and swinging punches: not at Kittel – he wouldn’t dare hit the green Adonis – no, at one of his team-mates, and all credit to Jack Bauer, but not even his most pivotal.

Nacer – if you’re going to punch someone, try knocking some sense into yourself. Or at least, go hit Julien Vermote, Philippe Gilbert or Zdenek Stybar: the guys who have your Cofidis team and the rest of the peloton in their pockets.

Speaking of the “little girl” who he thought “wanted my autograph” during that unsavoury spat at the end of stage 10, Bauer said: “I understand Bouhanni needs to win, Cofidis needs to win, it’s obvious that he’ll be aggressive and doing what he can to beat Marcel, but unfortunately at this Tour de France it’s not going to happen.”

And there you have it: no one is going to solve a problem like Marcel. Certainly not by taking him on in a sprint. So change the record and stop driving us all insane.

With the race hitting the Pyrenees on Thursday, the hills may soon be alive with the sound of Marcel’s cries – but once the Alps and over and Marcel’s days in the hills have come to an end, Kittel can sing to the tune of his sixth win in Paris. That’s if he doesn’t win at least once or twice again before.