Cavendish wins Suisse's Lumino stage

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Cavendish takes Columbia's next win in Suisse

Team Columbia-Highroad continued to win the sprints at the Tour de Suisse, with Mark Cavendish taking the honours in the third stage in Lumino. The Brit finished ahead of Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam).

Swiss Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) maintained his overall lead.

"It was another perfect win for us and having four riders there to help me in the last three kilometres showed how good and strong we are as a team," Cavendish said.

"It was a great lead-out and all the guys worked perfectly. Thor Hushovd tried to get a jump on me but I was able to get him before the line."

An escape group of four men marked the 198 kilometre stage from Davos. William Frischkorn (Garmin-Slipstream), Enrico Gasparotto (Lampre-NGC), Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) and Marlon Pérez (Caisse d'Epargne) had over three minutes on the main group at the top of the Lukmanierpass (1940m) at 70.6 remaining kilometres to go.

Gasparotto, 48 seconds behind in the overall classification at the beginning of the stage, endangered Cancellara's lead. The group worked to limit the escape's advantage prior to the end of the stage.

American Frischkorn lost contact with the other three in the final nine kilometres, and the group caught the remaining three escapees with four kilometres left to race.

Canada's Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin-Slipstream) tried a solo move in the final three kilometres. The sprinters, led by Team Columbia, caught him with 1500 metres to go.

Marcus Burghardt, yesterday's winner Bernhard Eisel, Tony Martin and George Hincapie strung out the peloton and guided the Manxman to the finish. Hincapie was the final one in the train, as he was for Cavendish in Milano-Sanremo.

Hushovd was the first to go for the sprint, but Cavendish was on him and then powered past him. Freire went after the 24-year-old, but Cavendish finished two bike lengths ahead of the three-time World Champion.

It was Freire's second consecutive second-place finish, but "the disappointment today is less than yesterday," Rabobank Directeur Sportif Adri van Houwelingen said. The Spaniard was able to console himself with the points jersey.

There were many crashes during the stage on rain-wet roads. Mathew Hayman and Lars Boom of Rabobank both went down. The Austrian Professional Continental team Vorarlberg-Corratec was hard hit, as René Haselbacher, Andreas Dietziker, Pascal Hungerbühler and Sebastian Siedler all crashed on the descent of the Lukmanierpass. All were able to continue, although Haselbacher lost over 27 minutes.

Tuesday's fourth of nine stages runs 197 kilometres from Biasca to Stäfa. It features the Hors Categorie Gotthardpass, the "roof of the Tour" at 2108 metres, only 45 km into the stage. There is another Category Two climb near the end, with the last 37 km being relatively flat.