Wearing the yellow jersey did Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) little good as he was unceremoniously dropped on the second categorized climb of stage 2 at the Tour de France today, the Col de la Serra.

Kittel was picked up by team-mate Roy Curvers but soon abandoned all hope of bridging the gap to the bunch and finished the day more than 17 minutes down on Jan Bakelants (RadioShack-Leopard) who took the stage and replaced Kittel in the leader’s jersey.

“Today was not so easy but luckily I found a nice group and reached the finish without any problems,” Kittel said afterwards without appearing too shattered by the loss of the coveted jersey. “It is a shame to lose the yellow jersey but we expected this. It was hard, but I am a sprinter and know that these are stages where I have to suffer a bit before we get some more flat stages where I can get up to speed again.”

Tomorrow Kittel will wear the green jersey as leader of the points competition.