For the second year in a row, André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) can go into the Tour de France beaming with confidence after he defended his title as German road race champion in Baunatal today. After Marcel Kittel had been taken out by cramps, it all came down to a sprint finish and having been given a perfect lead-out by his teammate Marcel Sieberg, he narrowly held off John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano) in the final dash to the line.

One year ago André Greipel conquered the German road race championships for the first time in his career and he has proudly but the German champion's jersey on show in the biggest races of the world. When the Tour de France kicks off on Saturday, the German will again wear the coveted tunic as he managed to defend his title in today's mostly flat race in Baunatal.

The 206.4km race consisted of 12 laps of a circuit and was firmly controlled by Giant-Shimano all day. With both John Degenkolb and Marcel Kittel in their ranks, the team had two formidable sprint options that were perfectly suited to the course.

The early action was dominated by a 6-rider breakaway with riders from the German continental teams but all day they were kept firmly under control by the Giant riders. However, the Dutch team started to come under pressure on lap 8 when some of the major stars started to attack each other.

Paul Voss (NetApp-Endura), Marcus Brughardt (BMC) and Greipel were some of the first riders to give it a try but then world time trial champion Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) took over. He attacked several times on his own before he finally got clear and time trialled his way up to the remnants of the early break.

Going into the penultimate lap, Martin was more than a minute ahead while Giant-Shimano and MTN-Qhubeka were chasing hard behind. However, the world champion started to lose ground and when he started the final lap he was only around 30 seconds ahead and still had Grischa Janorschke for company.

Voss, Christian Knees (Sky) and even Kittel had tried to bridge the gap but none of them had managed to make the junction and with 14km to go, the race was back together. That opened the door for new attacks, with Jens Voigt (Trek), Linus Gerdemann (MTN) and Simon Geschke (Giant-Shimano) launching a promising move.

They didn't get much leeway and instead Knees tried a solo attack. When he was brought back Paul Martens (Belkin) gave it a final desperate try but the sprinters were not to be denied and it would all be decided in a bunch sprint.

Surprisingly, Kittel was not there as the Giant leader had been hit by cramps on the final lap and so Degenkolb was the main sprinter for the German team. Being completely on his own, he latched onto Greipel's wheel when Marcel Sieberg led out his Lotto teammate perfectly.

Greipel and Degenkolb went head to head after Degenkolb had launched the sprint but in the end, Greipel emerged as the fastest. Phil Bauhaus (Stölting) completed the podium.

Both Greipel and Degenkolb will be at the start when the Tour de France kicks off on Sunday.

Result:

1. André Greipel

2. John Degenkolb

3. Phil Bauhaus

4. Alexander Krieger

5. Henning Bommel

6. Sacha Weber

7. Ralf Matzka

8. Jasha Sütterlin

9. Willi Willwohl

10. Rick Zabel