Cavendish takes 24th Tour de France stage win in Marseille

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Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) took the 24th Tour de France stage victory of his career, on stage 5 of the 2013 Tour in Marseille. The Briton, who is recovering from bronchitis, beat Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) and Peter Sagan (Cannondale), with Andre Greipel (Lotto Belisol) fourth. A crash with several hundred meters to go stopped much of the field from continuing to the finish line, but the riders lost no time in the GC.

Cavendish was thrilled to take his first stage of the 2013 Tour, bringing his career tally to two dozen victories here, although he had to wait through four stages to take it.

"I usually don't start winning until about the 5th stage of the Tour anyway," Cavendish said. "This has been pretty on the norm, but we were really motivated today. Orica-GreenEdge did the chasing today which was nice, for once we could sit behind and save it for the end. Jerome Pineau told me about the final climb. I knew it was always going to be difficult.

"When I turned left I immediately recognized it from one of my first races as a professional. I knew exactly what climb it was as soon as I hit it heading into Marseille, and luckily I held on and I had the whole team around me to take me to the last kilometer."

The arrow-straight final 4km turned into a drag race between lead-out squads, with Cannondale's Peter Sagan surfing trains after expending his men, and Omega Pharma going head to head with Andre Greipel's Lotto Belisol train.

"You could see how committed everybody was today for the sprint and the win," Cavendish said. "Matteo Trentin went in the final and he went really, really well. He held off two guys going on the right and took a massive turn into the last corner with Gert Steegmans on his wheel. Steegmans stayed patient and he went so fast, I have to say I didn't even really have to accelerate off his wheel. I just carried on the speed he took me to and only for the last 250 meters and that was it. We won. I'm super, super happy with the win today."

"When I saw the guy of Lotto-Belisol go, Niki Terpstra already pulled longer than he had on the schedule of the leadout," Trentin said. "So, I decided to go, because the important part was to stay in front on the last corner. It was a little bit longer than what was on the map because the map said at 500m, but it was at 570m almost. So when I arrived I was like 'Oh no, I'm too long,' but I stayed. Another guy of Lotto-Belisol went, Gert went, and then I finally stopped. I did all I could to set up Cavendish for the victory and I'm so happy with this result."

Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) retained his overall lead ahead of teammates Daryl Impey and Michael Albasini, which according to directeur sportif Matt White was the team's goal. "A main objective today was to keep the yellow jersey," White said. “Whether it stayed on Simon’s back or went to Daryl didn’t come into consideration at all. Our normal plan was to lead out Gossy [Matt Goss] for the sprint. With Impey as last lead-out, there was a good chance he would take over the yellow jersey from Simon if the sprint played out as we hoped.”

But Goss didn't make the front group. "Gossy had a bad moment on a climb and was dropped 20km from the finish,” White said. “When we lost him for the sprint, we put all our energy into looking after Gerro position-wise in the finale. A lot can go wrong at the end of the stage. The boys helped keep him out of trouble.”

The team's finale wasn't without incident, however, as Impey was involved in a crash in the last 20km.“He banged his knee a little bit but was totally fine other than that,” said White. “Before we even got to him, he was back on his bike and chasing hard.”

How it unfolded

A six rider group broke away early on in the stage and built up a lead of over 13 minutes. The peloton reacted late to the threat and it was touch and go as to whether they would be caught, with the last of them, Alexey Lutsenko (Astana) being swept up by the field with only 4 km to go.

Arashiro was the best placed of the group, only 3:42 down on Gerrans. He was in the virtual yellow jersey for much of the day, with many hoping he would become the first Japanese to claim the leader's jersey.

It was a rolling stage, with four ranked climbs, one category 3 and the rest category 4. De Gendt had come into the race with his eye on the GC and proclaiming his aim of winning on Alpe d'Huez, but illness threw him back earlier in the race. The Vacansoleil rider must have been feeling better though, as he started slowly gathering mountain points on the first two climbs.

Eventually Lotto Belisol and Argos Shimano moved in to help with the lead work, and the gap started coming down. With 75km to go it was just over seven and a half minutes. That also saw the third climb of the day, the category four Cote de la Roquebrussanne. This time it was Arashiro who sprinted out to grab the one available point.

The group finally broke with some 54 kms to go as Delaplace and Sicard could no longer keep up.

The gap was still over five minutes with 40km to go, and the sprinters saw their chance slipping away from them, and Omega Pharma-QuickStep moved up to help with the chase. The seconds ticked away until Arashiro was out of the virtual lead.

The gap dropped dramatically as the finish line approached. The four still in front continued to work together and fought hard to stay away, while behind them Orica-GreenEdge gave furious chase.

The last climb of the day was the Cote des Bastides, with about 20 km to go, not very steep but a long ascent. Although ranked category 4, it was enough to start dropping riders off the back of the field.

Arashiro attacked on the climb, as the gap dropped to 1:45. He and Reza worked together to drop their rivals, but unsuccessfully, and it looked more and more as if they would eventually be caught.

A large crash in the middle of the field took down, amongst others, Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) and Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Sharp). Both got back on their bikes, but it eliminated Kittel from a possible mass sprint finish.

The gap dropped to below a minute with just over 13 km to go. It was too much for Lutsenko, who took off, followed only by Reza. Despite their brave efforts, they too were caught.

Omega Pharma-QuickStep moved up to the front with 2km to go, hoping that Mark Cavendish could pull out his first win of this year’s race. Lotto Belisol had other plans though, riding hard for Greipel. Peter Sagan chose Greipel's rear wheel. A crash took down may riders with about 200 meters to go, totally blocking the rest of the peloton. It came down to a handful of riders, with Cavendish turning on his legendary acceleration to take an easy win. Boasson Hagen put in a strong sprint for second place ahead of Sagan, while Greipel eased off near the end, seeing he was beaten.

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