It was one of the toughest days of the Tour de France, and while the front of the race saw Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) go one better after his second in the bunch sprint the day before to win a mountain stage, at the back it was the man who beat Van Aert the day before that finished one of the furthest behind, rolling over the line 40 minutes and 40 seconds in arrears.
The green jersey holder beat the time cut by seven minutes after almost six hours of racing, finishing alongside Deceuninck-QuickStep teammates Davide Ballerini, Michael Mørkøv, Tim Declercq and Dries Devenyns.
Roger Kluge pretty sure Caleb Ewan would have beaten Mark Cavendish in Tour de France sprints velonews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from velonews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Taking his third victory at this year s Tour and the 33rd of his career, Cavendish launched off the back of another picture-perfect lead out from his Deceuninck-QuickStep teammates to move to within one stage win of equalling Eddy Merckx s all-time record.
Cavendish finishes off stellar leadout as he nears Tour de France record
Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) took his 33rd Tour de France victory with another bunch sprint win, taking out the finish in Valence after a superb leadout by Deceuninck-QuickStep.
The Manx Missile again turned coach in his post-stage interview, this time directing his attention to the efforts of Team BikeExchange to push him on the climbs and give an advantage to Australian Michael Matthews, who remains one of the main challengers for Cavendish s green jersey.
From the start of the stage, it was clear the Team BikeExchange had a plan to be aggressive, hitting the early category 2 climb with pace and forcing a group containing Australian Michael Matthews clear at the front of the race. Matthews was driven into the intermediate sprint by his teammates, with Sonny Colbrelli (Bahrain Victorious) in tow.
Colbrelli sprinted to the win, water flying in his wake as Matthews took, second, Colbrelli took the 20 points on offer, with Matthews grabbing 17, while points classification leader Mark Cavendish (Deceuninck-QuickStep) scored none with his focus solely on survival.
As the stage continued, Matthews dropped back to grupetto to save his energy for another day, but Colbrelli maintained in the chasing group behind O Connor, eventually riding to third on the stage after overtaking riders late on the climb to Tignes. With the high finish, Colbrelli took 15 extra points for the sprint jersey, and propelled his way up to third in the classificati
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