Tour de France - Back-to-back Cavendish hits four

Eurosport - Sat, 19 Jul 17:51:00 2008

Briton Mark Cavendish easily held off Robbie McEwen to claim a fourth Tour de France sprint victory and a second straight win in stage 13.

CYCLING 2008 Tour de France. Mark Cavendish (Columbia). 13 etapa. Foto: EFE. - 0

The 24-year-old Manxman, who broke Barry Hoban's 35 year-old mark for number of stage wins by a Briton in a single Tour with victory in stage 12, comfortably added to his tally after the flat 182 kilometres from Narbonne to Nimes.

Cavendish also became the first rider to win four stages at a single Tour de France since Italian Alessandro Petacchi did so five years ago.

Australian 36-year-old McEwen, a three-time green jersey victor and 12-time stage winner, claimed his best finish of this year's race but crossed the line more than a full bike's length behind the Columbia sprinter.

Frenchman Romain Feillu (AG2R) took the third spot on the podium from German Heinrich Haussler and Spaniard Oscar Freire.

Rabobank's Freire maintains his green jersey, but Cavendish moves into second in the sprinters standings at 28 points behind the Spaniard.

The Briton now must be considered a serious contender to win the points standings on the Champs Elysees if he's able to survive the upcoming stages in the Alps.

McEwen's compatriot and Silence-Lotto team-mate Cadel Evans easily retained his yellow jersey after finishing in the main bunch.

France's Florent Brard and Dutchman Niki Terpstra broke away in the first kilometre of racing, and Milram's Terpstra launched a solo attack in the final 20 kilometres but was easily brought back into the peloton with 10 kilometres left to ride.

After a failed solo attack from French national time trial champion Sylvain Chavanel, the sprinter's teams jockeyed for position with Erik Zabel's Milram and Cavendish's Columbia moving to the fore.

Cavendish, who also won stages five and eight in the first week, again timed his sprint perfectly blasting to an insurmountable lead about 200 metres from the line.

"My team mates perfectly launched the sprint in the last kilometre," said Cavendish.

Saturday's 14th stage from takes the peloton 194.5 kilometres from Nimes to Digne-les-Bains and finishes with a category four climb in the last ten kilometres.

Watch live coverage of every stage on your PC via the Eurosport player - click on the link under the picture to subscribe.

Or watch the action on British Eurosport - available in the UK on Sky channel 410 and Virgin Media channel 521 or British Eurosport 2 - available on Sky 411 and Virgin Media 525.

Jeremy Stahl / Eurosport

Comment 12 - 31 of 31

Sort comments by: Most recent | Most rated

  1. Hes realy great...making the Tour watchable again.. I normaly dont like to watch flat stages suitable for a sprint finish but now waiting to see what will Cavendish do in the end....I coud not believe my eyes when i saw how quickly he was pedaling in the last 50 meters of yesterdays stage. I hope he s clean, and hope to see him winning another stage to improve stage winning record.. He s saving The Tour.

    From ogacemer, on Sat 19 Jul 1:18PM

  2. This is Tour De France, not one day races. And what about chronometer. Where is Cavendish? I can't hear you. Nowhere. He sits all day in the back and then pedals a 300 meters.

    From zorangrubic85, on Sat 19 Jul 11:32AM

  3. last comment from stevens mark 81. come on man take the acheivment for what it is. this man is breaking records all over the place. he may not be a GC contender but he is the nuts and makes this TDF something very exciting for us brits. plus he has won me a bag of money by backing him on this type of stage !!

    From jomonaghan1, on Sat 19 Jul 1:09AM

  4. last comment from stevens mark 81. come on man take the acheivment for what it is. this man is breaking records all over the place. he may not be a GC contender but he is the nuts and makes this TDF something very exciting for us brits. plus he has won me a bag of money by backing him on this type of stage !!

    From jomonaghan1, on Sat 19 Jul 1:03AM

  5. Funny, I can't remember Boardman EVER winning a sprint. Factual comments please.

    From BoBBie G, on Sat 19 Jul 12:40AM

  6. stage wins? sprint God? Thunder thighs? BIG DEAL. Just yet another Briton who can't compete in the main event, woefully outclassed and inept as an endurance cyclist at the top level. What is his overall standing? - 144th! Millar is at least at the dizzy heights of 47th. When will we produce a cyclist who can do something other than just sprint? Compared to these two, Boardman (he of the space-tech sprint bike at the Olympics) was a contender, man he even had a top 50 overall finish on one Tour if memory serves right. Of course he won one or two sprints when he didn't crash(stunning) but in the rest of the evnt was generally ill or injured from the rigours of actually trying to be a proper cyclist.

    From stevens.mark81, on Sat 19 Jul 12:24AM

  7. I'm starting to prefer the points race over the GC. Cavendish is fearless and ungodly fast. Also noticing he's maturing in his interviews. This kid has become a one man wrecking crew on the sprinters. He rode away from McEwen in the last 50 meters. Thats six GT victories in '08. Wonder how the competitve side of Boonen is doing about now?

    From cer-soloist, on Fri 18 Jul 11:11PM

  8. GO GO CAVENDISH!!!! U tha man, hope u saved enough energy for the olympics! UK gonna wipe the board in cycling.

    From zehst, on Fri 18 Jul 10:59PM

  9. They should eliminate the last 20 or so after each stage - that would sort the men out from the boys

    From bowesey17, on Fri 18 Jul 10:43PM

  10. It is funny

    From bowesey17, on Fri 18 Jul 10:41PM

  11. What do you mean he gets nowhere in the overall standings? He's in 2nd place in points. Obviously winning a flat stage, when all the riders finish in relatively the same time, is not going to gain you much time on the overall GC, if you are sucking wind, losing time, in the mountains just making sure to finish w/out being eliminated. Sprinters save their energy to win the flats where you gain very little time. It's really not that funny.

    From K B, on Fri 18 Jul 9:26PM

  12. 4,and in what manner!!! To me Cavendish is a bit suspect...You can't trust anybody these days...After Ricco and with EPO 3G,they all have acces to the state of the art drugs.

    From CRC, on Fri 18 Jul 9:25PM

  13. Unfortunately winning a stage seems to get you nowhere in the overall standings. it's a funny old game, cycling.

    From bowesey17, on Fri 18 Jul 9:14PM

  14. Hey boy - Well done Mark - outstanding riding yet again....everyone back here at home is on cloud nine about your acheivements and very very proud.
    Best of luck for the rest of your Tour and Beijing and beyond.

    From glenvinegirl, on Fri 18 Jul 8:53PM

  15. Yep sod the Olympics @#$% stay here and show everyone what a Champion you are.
    Anyone reckon Cav can do three in a row tmrow?
    Up hill finish maybe McEwen

    From duncanrimmer, on Fri 18 Jul 8:49PM

  16. get in there cav ur doing the uk proud and ur clean way to go brother

    From Danny P, on Fri 18 Jul 8:47PM

  17. The making of a legend..... Rock on Cavendish!!

    From dalton9319, on Fri 18 Jul 8:37PM

  18. come on cav is the man drag him to paris and he'll win

    From ahoulton1, on Fri 18 Jul 8:32PM

  19. cav for bbc sports personality of the year? regards Tony p.

    From tonyisverybad, on Fri 18 Jul 8:05PM

  20. We'll see in the next few days is he positive. :D

    From zorangrubic85, on Fri 18 Jul 7:39PM
Sort comments by: Most recent | Most rated

Not already a Yahoo! user ? to get a free Yahoo! Account