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Britain's Mark Cavendish won his third stage at this year's Tour de France, romping to victory in Issoudun.

The Columbia HTC rider beat Norway's Thor Hushovd, who snatched precious points during the mountain stages to take the green jersey from the Isle of Man sprinter, to the line after a slow 194.5km stage from Limoges.

"It's a good win, the finish was difficult, with an uphill part and a lot of corners," Cavendish said.

"I told myself that I had maybe started (my sprint) too soon but I was perfectly set up by (Columbia team-mate) Mark (Renshaw).

"To me, he is the man of the day."

Cavendish became just the ninth rider in Tour history to secure at least seven stage wins before his 25th birthday and he now trails Hushovd by six points in the points jersey classification.

Plenty of home riders were eager to get involved in an early breakaway on Bastille Day and an attack by Thierry Hupond of Skil Shimano inside the opening kilometre succeeded.

He was joined by compatriots Benoit Vaugrenard (Francaise des Jeux) and Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) along with Russia's Mikhail Ignatiev.

They opened up a lead of close to four minutes over the three minor categorised climbs of the day but did not build that advantage over a peloton seemingly intent on surpressing the stage as a spectacle.

Fourteen of the 20 teams on the Tour had signed a petition protesting against the decision by the International Cycling Union to ban radio communication between riders and team managers for the stage and although a neutralised stage never materialised, the peloton were happy to ride at just under 40kmh for the bulk of the stage.

The peloton seemed to reach an agreement to commence the chase with 50km remaining and the escapees were eventually caught just inside two kilometres from the finish.

Cavendish was yet again led out superbly by Australian Renshaw before bouncing to the front with 300m remaining and holding off the challenge of Hushovd.

"Cav goes very, very fast, he has a very, very strong team, it is hard to beat him (in the race for the green jersey) but I know it is possible," Hushovd said.

"Today was not easy because I lost four or five metres some 500 metres from the line and then it was really hard to get back to him."

Overall leader Rinaldo Nocentini of Italy retained his yellow jersey with favourites Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong remaining second and third on general classification.

But their Astana team-mate Levi Leipheimer and Britain's Bradley Wiggins lost 15 seconds after a late crash split the peloton.

Andreas Kloden leapfrogs Leipheimer into fourth, 54 seconds behind Nocentini, while Wiggins drops to seventh overall behind Tony Martin.

Eurosport