Cavendish rockets to stage win in Bordeaux

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Mark Cavendish of HTC-Columbia put his stamp on the sprint finishes of this year's Tour, with his fourth mass sprint victory in Bordeaux looking easier than ever. He had a five-bike length gap over Julian Dean (Garmin-Transitions) and Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Farnese Vini). The Italian didn't win the stage but was able to reclaim the green jersey.

There were no changes in the overall rankings, as Alberto Contador (Astana) continues to lead by eight seconds over Saxo Bank's Andy Schleck, with Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) third.

In the battle for the green jersey, Petacchi had the upper hand. His third place finish gave him enough points to snatch it off the shoulders of Thor Hushovd (Cervelo TestTeam), who was went too early in the wind and finished a disappointing 13th.

"I only want to win, not matter by how much," Cavendish said. "When Petacchi went, I thought, that's it. But then it was pretty easy."

It was Cavendish's 14th career Tour stage win, all gathered within only three years. He has now outdistanced his mentor Erik Zabel, who himself won in Bordeaux in 1995 and 1997. "I have never seen anyone like Mark," said the old master, who gave his protégé several hugs after the stage.

Cavendish returned the compliment, saying Zabel "tells me exactly what I have to do and I trust him 100 percent. When he tells me the details of a sprint finale, it is as exact as a photograph to me."

"I have been sick the last few days with bronchitis. I had a fever last night and didn't know if I would even start today," Cavendish said. "But I wanted to do it for the team."

Sprinting for the green

The closing sprint was the only excitement on an otherwise dull day, and even it was pretty much of a foregone conclusion. Sky led the way into the final kilometre, hoping to set up Edvald Boasson Hagen, but the young Norwegian couldn't hold his own against the top sprinters.

Hushovd went into the finale far back in the field, and moved up to Cavendish' rear wheel before passing the Manx rider. But he lacked the final kick, and faded back out of the day's top 10.  The Manxman blasted to the front and no one was able to keep pace with him.

That opens up the green jersey race even more, with Petacchi leading only by 10 points over Hushovd, with Cavendish a mere 16 points down in third. The Champs Elysées will be the deciding factor in this year's points classification.

A quiet day in the peloton

The day's break was established within about the first 12km. Matti Breschel (Saxo Bank), Jerome Pineau (Quick Step), Benoit Vaugrenard (FDJ) and Daniel Oss (Liquigas) made their way to the front and moved away. The peloton had had enough of escapees building up large gaps, so it kept this group under close observation, not letting the leaders get more than three and a half minutes.

The sprinters' teams kept the pace up, with Lampre and HTC-Columbia doing most of the work.  Milram moved in to also lend a hand.

Second-placed Andy Schleck made an extended visit to the race doctor's car with about 50km to go.  He tried to wave the TV cameras away, but it appeared that his problem was something like saddle sores - not the kind of ailment he really wants to cope with going into tomorrow's time trial trailing by such a narrow margin.

Cervelo was rather notably absent from the front of the peloton and the lead work.  Hushovd had said he would ask his team to ride at the front if needed, but the big Norwegian must have found the other teams' work satisfactory.

With about 30km to go, the field turned up the speed and started cutting the gap.  With only 30 seconds between the two groups, Oss took off at 14km in a solo effort, and his companions were caught.

The peloton let the 23-year-old Tour debutante dangle at 30 seconds, but his escape, which earned him the day's most combative rider title, was over with 3.5km to go. Linus Gerdemann of Milram took off in an apparent escape attempt, but was immediately reeled back in. The mass sprint was thus set up.

Full Results

Scott Sunderland's stage analysis:

Today we saw a very happy Mark Cavendish and a very disappointed Thor Hushovd. Thor was left in the perfect position today for the sprint but it just seems like the turbo isn’t working. It’s going to be very difficult for him to take the green jersey now. Petacchi seems to be going quite well so Thor’s really going to have to pull something out of the bag to get it off him.

From day one, Thor hasn’t been sprinting well in this Tour. On the first stage he was left off in a good position and if he was at 100% he would have won but he clearly wasn’t. Because of his broken collarbone in May he could only do endurance training before the Tour rather than specific sprint work and he’s paid for that. I thought he might have improved in that regard during the Tour, but if anything things have got worse unfortunately.

Cavendish’s situation is the opposite of Thor’s in that he’s got faster and faster as the Tour’s gone on and now he’s looking at winning five stages because unless there’s a crash or a puncture, Cav’s going to win on Sunday. The way he was riding today, everybody else was lucky that he’s got a fever, because he was almost looking around to say, “come on, come on, where are you?”

I think Cavendish’s team have really helped him. His management have really been superb. He had his problems earlier in the season and earlier in the Tour and people were writing him off a little bit, but within the HTC-Columbia team and management everybody kept believing in him and they’re all getting their rewards. They never doubted him and they kept fighting for him and working for him even when his form wasn’t as good as it is now. They created a very positive atmosphere around him and it shows how important that aspect of the sport is.

As for the overall situation, today was just a question of avoiding stupid crashes and recuperating for tomorrow by trying to keep the legs spinning. From this evening, both Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador will be already in time trial mode, getting the bikes ready and getting themselves tuned in to tomorrow’s important day.

For the sport, I’d like to think that it’ll be close and I believe it will. We saw from Andy’s effort on the Tourmalet that he can push out the watts when it’s needed and put in a big sustained effort like the one he’ll need tomorrow. On paper and technically Contador is a better time triallist, but Andy – like his brother Frank – has worked very, very hard on his time trialling this winter.

I’m anticipating that with the form that Andy has shown in this year’s Tour that he will get close to Contador, but can he get close enough? We’ll have to wait and see.