Tour de France stage 6 highlights - Video
Cavendish passes Hinault with 29 career stage wins
Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) landed his third win of the 2016 Tour de France on Thursday, blasting ahead of Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) as the sprinters approached the finish line of stage 6 in Montauban. More historically, the result was the 29th career Tour de France stage win for the Manx Missile, pushing him past five-time Tour winner Bernard Hinault. Only Eddy Merckx, with 34 career wins, has more.
On a day marked by a serious increase in temperature, Yukiya Arashiro (Lampre-Merida) and Jan Barta (Bora-Argon 18) animated the early racing with a two-rider escape. Race leader Greg Van Avermaet's BMC Racing team let the duo have a five-minute gap, but in the end everyone knew this day would come down to a sprint. Cavendish bided his time in the big German's slipstream and then launched his powerful final kick with time to celebrate at the line.
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