Just when it looked like the HTC-Columbia cycling team had been lost in the mass sprint, Mark Cavendish emerged from behind Mark Renshaw to win his fourth stage at the Tour de France on Sunday.
American Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervelo) was gaining on Cavendish at the finish, but he didn't have enough distance left to beat him. In interviews after the race, the Wenatchee, Washington, sprinter was clearly disappointed.
Meanwhile, France's Tom Voeckler finished in the peloton to survive another day in the yellow jersey. Certainly he'll lose it in the Alps next week, but that's what everything thought would have happened already in the Pyrenees.
Survivor controversy
Speaking of survival, Cavendish was lucky to be in the stage at all.
Apparently he just barely made the time cut-off in the previous
mountain stage by just a minute. He later attributed his survival to
the efforts of four teammates who escorted him to the finish, as well as
his good fortune that Alberto Contador (SaxoBank) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas) didn't press the main group any harder on the mountain top finish.
That might have been what frustrated Farrar so much after the stage — that Cavendish had even been in the race on Sunday. He said:
“Cav made a really remarkable comeback after being dropped by the grupetto for about 70k yesterday, so it's a little frustrating to have him beat me so closely today.”
Earlier, some sprinters had complained to race officials that Cavendish had been hanging onto cars to help him over the hills, a charge dismissed by Tour officials.
The stage victory marked the 19th career Tour de France victory for the cyclist from the Isle of Man in the British Isles. He retains the green points jersey.
Breakaway
The lumpy 187km (116 miles) Stage 15 from Limoux to Montpellier offered a break to the peloton that had been struggling through the Pyrenees for the past three days. Only one Category 4 climb on the route, although there were several short climbs.
A five-man breakaway escaped early, but never gained more than 4 minutes. Voeckler's Europcar team kept the break close by in the first part of the stage, then HTC Columbia upped the pace toward the intermediate sprint and the second half of the race.
With the peloton closing to within a minute, Mikhail Ignatiev (Katusha) attacked his four companions, followed by Niki Terpstra (Quickstep). The remaining three — Mickael Delage (FDJ), Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis), and Anthony Delaplace (Saur) — were caught with 14km to go.
Sprint
Garmin-Cervelo's Christian Vande Velde then set the pace for the peloton, and Phillippe Gilbert (Omega-Pharma) got away, followed by a couple of other cyclists and they caught the remnants of the breakaway.
At this point, it looked like the HTC-Columbia train was derailed and it would be a free-for-all at the finish.
As the main group came together in the last kilometer, Renshaw took the front with Cavendish in his slipstream. Soon, Farrar appeared and drove past Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre) and Daniel Oss (Liquigas) among others but couldn't quite beat Cavendish.
Top 10 overall
1 Thomas Voeckler, Team Europcar
2 Fränk Schleck, Leopard Trek — 1:49
3 Cadel Evan, BMC Racing Team — 02:06
4 Andy Schleck, Leopard Trek — 2:15
5 Ivan Basso, Liquigas-Cannondale — 3:16
6 Samuel Sanchez, Euskaltel-Euskadi — 3:44
7 Alberto Contador, Saxo Bank — 4:00
8 Damiano Cunego, Lampre – ISD — 4:01
9 Thomas Danielson, Team Garmin-Cervelo — 5:46
10 Kevin De Weert, QuickStep — 6:18
Recent Comments