Great Britain's Mark Cavendish keeps doing what he does best, winning bike races.
Team Columbia's sprinting sensation won Stage 2 of the 2009 Tour of Missouri in Cape Girardeau on Tuesday after a 112-mile bike race from Ste. Genevieve. It marked his 22nd victory of the season.
On a down note, defending champion Christian Vande Velde decided to abandon the Tour just as the stage was starting. The Illinois native and team leader for Garmin Slipstream had planned to finish the Tour despite breaking a bone in his right hand in that crash near the finish of Stage 1.
The pain of braking and shifting must have been too much, as Vande Velde pulled out of the race. Earlier this year, Vande Velde had to abandon the Giro d'Italia after a severe crash (he had broken five vertabrae, his pelvis and a rib.) He fell and injured his hip in the Vattenfall Cyclassics in Germany in August.
It sounds like his bad luck didn't end with pulling out of the race. After pulling out of the race, Vande Velde reported at his Twitter account:
“Just got pulled over. Should have flown, wouldve been cheaper.”
One cyclist who isn't getting pulled over for speeding is Cavendish. He knocked off his two biggest rivals in the Tour of Missouri for the second straight day on Tuesday.
VeloNews reports that Cavendish didn't get a clean lead-out in the final kilometer, as Cervelo's Thor Hushovd started the sprint with Cavendish on his wheel. No problem for Cavendish to pass the Norwegian before the finish line, as Juan Jose Haedo of Saxo Bank finished a close third.
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