Mark Cavendish delighted to secure the Tour de France victory in the rainbow jersey
Mark Cavendish started the Tour de France as a reigning UCI Road World Champion and the cyclist showed good legs right from the start of the race.
He rode brilliantly during the opening prologue and the stage 1 of the race and found his winning ways during the stage 2.
He was tested against the in-form Andre Greipel of Tem Lotto Belisol during the long 207.5 kilometre stage and both the cyclists put up a tremendous show till the end.
The final announcement was made after consulting the video recordings of the race finish and Mark was declared as the winner of the race after a nail biter.
He sailed across the finish line in a quickest time of 4 hours, 56 minutes and 59 seconds and bagged his 21st stage win at the Tour de France.
"We always knew that it would be hard for me this year,” Mark noted.
“I always said I wanted to make history and that means winning a lot of sprints, but there’s not many better ways to make history than to be part of a British team winning the Tour de France with a British rider”.
“That was always going to be a big aim coming into the Tour this year, but it was always likely to make it more difficult to win stages”.
“But if anything it’s made me more relaxed. I’m super happy to have won but it doesn’t make it any more special".
Matthew Harley Goss of Team Orica GreenEdge, Tom Veelers of Team Argos-Shimano and Alessandro Petacchi of Team Lampre-ISD claimed the third, the fourth and the fifth positions respectively.
The British professional cyclist occupied the top spot at the point’s classifications with a total number of 45 UCI points.
Andre Greipel, Matthew Harley Goss, Tom Veelers and Alessandro Petacchi achieved the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth positions respectively.
Peter Sagan of Team Liquigas-Cannondale is leading the point’s classifications after the stage 2 classifications with a total number of 78 UCI points.
Mark Cavendish of Team Sky is 14 points behind at the second position with Fabian Cancellara, Matthew Harley Goss and Edvald Boasson Hagen holding the next three positions in the respective order.
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