Cavendish tightens grip on the green jersey
Columba-HTC's Mark Cavendish tightened his grip on the Tour de France green jersey on Wednesday despite losing out on the chance to claim a third stage victory on this year's race.
Cavendish, who stylishly won stages 2 and 3 from bunch sprints to take his tally on the race to six in three participations, was among those who fell victim to a vicious headwind as the peloton chased down an earlier breakaway.
As Frenchman Thomas Voeckler won the stage for BBox-Bouygues after a successful breakaway, the best Cavendish could do was dominate a massive bunch sprint at the finish line seven seconds later.
As well as reminding his sprint rivals he is the boss, the 24-year-old Isle of Man rider's third place added 26 points to his tally in the points competition to take his total to 96.
His closest rival is Norway's former green jersey champion Thor Hushovd of Cervelo, who has 70 points, having picked up only 16 Wednesday because of his 10th place finish.
In third behind Hushovd is American Tyler Farrar, of Garmin, with 54 points while German Gerald Ciolek, of Milram, is fourth on 42.
After the first successful breakaway in windy conditions, Cavendish's team boss at Columbia, Bob Stapleton, hit out at the lack of contribution from some of the sprinters' teams.
"He (Cavendish) is doing a great job, there is a lot of negative racing out there," said Stapleton.
"People seem to be afraid of Mark and want us to do the maximum amount of work while they do the minimum and that showed when they didn't quite catch (Voeckler) today."
Stapleton even suggested that some of their sprint rivals are not working so they can try to catch Columbia out later in the race when the accumulation of efforts begins to take its toll.
"I think so, he has consistently beaten the best and I think their hope is that over the course of the Tour they can tire us out and tire him out," he added.
"There is a good chance that tactic won't work."
Thursday's sixth stage is a 181.5km ride over undulating terrain from Gerona to Barcelona which should favour a breakway and is most likely not to end in a bunch sprint, where most points can be earned.
On Friday the first of three difficult days in the Pyrenees should humble the sprinters and the green jersey contenders, and put their rivalries to the side as they club together on the climbs in a bid to simply survive.
He added: "We will try to pick some stages for our other riders in the Pyrenees, I think Michael Rogers and Kim (Kirchen) will have their chances.
"Mark will conserve his energy and wait for a day which suits him better.
"He is in very good shape and, barring illness, I think he will have a very good Tour and make his way to the Champs d'Elysees, which is his goal."
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