Mark Cavendish registered his 31st Grand Tour win
Mark Cavendish of Team Sky claimed his 31st Grand Tour win on Sunday, the stage 2 of the Giro d’ Italia 2012.
The cyclist finished the 206 kilometre race in a fastest time of 4 hours, 53 minutes and 12 seconds to occupy the top podium position.
He overcame Matthew Harley Goss of Team Orica GreenEdge with a terrific sprint towards the end of the stage.
Goss had to settle for the second position while Geoffrey Soupe of Team FDJ-Big Mat, Tyler Farrar of Team Garmin-Barracuda and Roberto Ferrari of Team Androni Giocattoli achieved the next four spots.
It was nothing new for Mark however the cyclist noted that he has never registered a victory that early at the Giro.
He briefed, "I've won five races this year, but I don't think I've ever won so early in the Giro".
"I'm with a new team for the Grand Tours, and to start off by winning the first sprint stage is really special. [But] I've got good form, I've been training hard".
Mark finished first at the Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne this season and bagged stages at the Tour of Qatar and Tirreno-Adriatico prior to his win at the Giro.
While commenting on his Sunday win, Cavendish briefed that he was not confident about his stage win mainly because he has lost a lot of weight recently.
Mark Cavendish received immense support by his team-mates especially by Geraint Thomas and the Manxman took full use of the opportunity as he praised his side for their support.
"We had some experienced guys [teammates] there, like Jez Hunt and Bernie Eisel, and it went fine".
"I'm very pleased, it was windy today and not easy, and there weren't too many teams interested in keeping the bunch together as a unit", Cavendish concluded.
The 26-year-old is holding the 12th overall spot after the stage 2 classifications and is optimistic to improve his overall lead at the coming stages of the Italian race.
Taylor Phinney is leading the classifications with Geraint Thomas, Alex Rasmussen, Manuele Boaro, Gustav Larsson, Ramunas Navardauskas, Brett Lancaster achieving the first seven spots.
It will be interesting to see if Cavendish can continue his stage 2 performance to challenge the final general classifications at the race.
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