John Degenkolb sprinted to 8th on stage 21 of the Tour de France. Andre Greipel won his fourth stage and Christopher Froome sealed his Tour victory.

The closing stage of the Tour de France traditionally went to Paris for a bunch sprint on the Champs-Élysées. Because of the weather conditions the champagne celebrations were not that extensive.

The bunch was set for a warming up of 39.5km before covering ten laps of 7km on the Champ-Élysées to make a total of 109.5km. After a few attempts to break away the sprinters’ team took over the control and prepared a bunch sprint.

For the fourth time this Tour Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) was the fastest in a bunch sprint, as John Degenkolb took 8th. Warren Barguil is the highest ranked rider for Team Giant-Alpecin in the final GC at 14th.

John Degenkolb after the stage said: “I am disappointed that it didn’t work out today. We lost our good position but could return again on the right moment. In the end I was unable to sprint to a good result. I came here to win a stage, which unfortunately did not happen.”

Warren Barguil added: “I am happy and really enjoyed today, even the rain couldn’t ruin that. It’s always been a dream for me to reach the Champs-Élysées to finish the Tour.

“I’ve learned a lot and made mistakes, which I learned from even more. During this Tour de France I realized even more that I can become a good GC rider in the future. I hope to return here in 2 or 3 years and aim for a good result in the GC, but first I need the time to develop further.”

Coach Marc Reef reflected: “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to convert this chance into a nice result and we couldn’t play a real role in the sprint today.

“The guys lost each other before passing the tunnel and Koen [De Kort] brought John [Degenkolb] back in position to take the final corner as fourth. The sprint started early and the pace dropped slightly, as a result the riders behind John passed him from behind with speed.

“About the whole Tour we are really satisfied. We won a great mountain stage, played a major role in the finales of most of the stages, took a lot of top 10 stage results and two days before the end had a rider in the GC top 10. So we can only be very happy.”