Cavendish roars to second consecutive stage victory

July 6, 2009
Tour de France Stage Three: Marseille to La Grande Motte
196.5 kilometers (122 miles)


Mind-blowing. That’s the only way to describe it. Team Columbia-HTC has officially put its stamp on the 2009 Tour de France.

The crew launched a massive coup in the peloton during today’s stage, splitting the field and sending the entire 9-man Columbia-HTC squad off the front to form a 27-man break that held until the finish. The incredible team effort (followed by another impressive leadout) gave boy-wonder Mark Cavendish an entrée to deliver his second consecutive stage win of this Tour and the sixth Tour victory of his career.

How it unfolded
A four man breakaway formed early on in today’s stage, gaining as much as 13 minutes on the peloton. With 112k to go, Team Saxo-Bank began to bring them back in order to protect their lead in the general classification.

Crosswinds confounded the peloton in the second half of the stage and the gap came down slowly. With 28k Team Columbia-HTC moved to the front and dropped the hammer as the road curved to the right, hanging the rest of the peloton out in the wind. The brilliant tactical move caught everyone off guard and opened up an immediate gap.

Panic ensued in the main field and the entire Columbia-HTC squad managed to make the break, dragging a total of 27 riders up the road and increasing the gap to 30 seconds in short order. With all 9 men in the break, Columbia-HTC went to work, driving the pace at the front to put time into the field and gain valuable seconds for GC contenders Mick Rogers and Kim Kirchen.

Race leader Fabian Cancellara (Saxo-Bank) was also in the break, as well as Lance Armstrong, who stood to benefit from moving up in the general classification in order to make a bid for the leadership role on Astana. With so many committed to staying away, the group soared to the finish line with a 40-second advantage.

Columbia-HTC road captain (and 14-year Tour veteran) George Hincapie explained that they hadn’t set out to launch a team attack on the field, but became frustrated when the other sprinters’ teams would not work to pull back the break. “It is the responsibility of the sprinter’s team to pull back breaks. Nobody would work and nobody wanted to race. It made us a bit angry so we saw a moment and decided we were going to go, no matter what. We just wanted to make the race happen.”

Coming into the finishing straight, lead-out expert Mark Renshaw delivered Cavendish to the line with rival Thor Hushovd in hot pursuit. Cavendish came off Renshaw’s wheel and took the inside line to prevent the big Norwegian rider from following in his slipstream. For a moment it looked as if Hushovd might come around on the left, but somehow Cavendish was able to produce a second kick to open up a few bike lengths before crossing under the banner in the top spot.

It was a brilliant finale to a dominating team performance.

“You could really appreciate how strong we were as a squad and we took a lot of time out of the guys behind. It was a hard last kilometre… but it worked out well.” Cavendish said, “When we all work together it's bound to work out.”


Cavendish in Green, Martin in White, Columbia-HTC second team overall
Besides setting Cavendish up for yet another stage victory (and reinforcing his lead in the sprinters competition), the team effort moved Tony Martin into 2nd place in the general classification and put him in the white jersey, which is reserved for the leader of the Best Young Rider’s Classification.

Maxime Monfort moved into 9th overall and Mick Rogers and George Hincapie also moved up (11th and 13th respectively), giving Columbia-HTC a total of four riders in the top 15 of the general classification. The combination of results moved them into 2nd place in the team classification competition.

Cavendish’s win is the third major victory of the day
Cavendish completed a hat trick of victories for Columbia-HTC after Switzerland's Michael Albasini won stage two and moved into the overall lead of the Tour of Austria, and Mara Abbott (USA) sprinted to a stage three victory in the Giro d'Italia Femminile.

Top Ten Individual Standings for Stage 3
1.      CAVENDISH Mark          TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC          5h 01' 24"       
2.     HUSHOVD Thor         CERVELO TEST TEAM         + 00' 00"
3.     LEMOINE Cyril         SKIL-SHIMANO             + 00' 00"
4.     DUMOULIN Samuel         COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE     + 00' 00"
5.     PINEAU Jérôme         QUICK STEP                 + 00' 00"
6.     CANCELLARA Fabian    TEAM SAXO BANK             + 00' 00"
7.     WEGMANN Fabian         TEAM MILRAM             + 00' 00"
8.     BEPPU Fumiyuki         SKIL-SHIMANO             + 00' 00"
9.     BOUET Maxime         AGRITUBEL                 + 00' 00"
10.     GERDEMANN Linus         TEAM MILRAM             + 00' 00"

Columbia-HTC Individual Standings after Stage 3
2.    MARTIN Tony                       
9      MAXIME Monfort           
11.      ROGERS Michael           
13.      HINCAPIE George
37.      KIRCHEN Kim
64.      RENSHAW Mark           
98.      GRABSCH Bert
104.      EISEL Bernhard   
142.      CAVENDISH Mark

Team Standings
1      ASTANA                  29:34:04       
2     TEAM COLUMBIA - HTC         0:01:46      
3     TEAM SAXO BANK             0:01:53      
4     GARMIN-SLIPSTREAM         0:02:47      
5     COFIDIS LE CREDIT EN LIGNE    0:03:14    

 

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