Mark Cavendish wins final stage as Cadel Evans takes overall lead in Tour de France 2011
HTC-Highroad team’s Mark Cavendish showed his brilliant performance in the 21st and final stage of Tour de France 2011 on Sunday, July 24. Cadel Evans maintained his overall leader’s jersey.
The race started in Creteil and ended in Paris champs-Elysees. The 34-year-old Australian cyclists took the total of 2 hours, 27 minutes and 2 seconds to cover the distance of 160 kilometres and Cavendish also took the overall green jersey.
After securing a victory Cavendish said, “I left it until 170m to go, I knew it was going to be tough, I’m so, so happy and so proud of the guys. It’s a great way to finish the Tour. I’ve been trying to get this [the green jersey] for the past few years
and finally I’ve done it.”
Edvald Boasson of Sky Procycling was runner-up and Andre Greipel of Omega Pharma-Lotto was in third place with the same timing of Mark.
A total of 151 cyclists crossed the finish line with the same timing of Sprinter while Thomas De Gendt of Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling was good rider and tried his best to catch the leading cyclists but failed and grabbed 152nd place with the difference
of 33 seconds.
With 59.5 kilometres to go, the group of 15 cyclists made their first breakaway including, Kristijan Koren, Jeremy Roy, Sergio Miguel Moreira Paulinho, Ben Swift, Mark Cavendish and Tony Martin. Roy launched an attack but failed and Kristijan Koren took
the first sprint.
In the final 95 kilometres, Edvald Boasson Hagen and Mark Cavendish working together built a lead but with the help of HTC-Highroad team, Mark increased his pace and managed to cross the line first ahead of the other cyclists.
Pierre Rolland of Europcar took the title overall Best young rider ahead of Rein Taaramae and Jerome Coppel. Samuel Sanchez took the King of Mountain title with 108 ahead of Andy Schleck with 98 points.
BMC racing rider Cadel Evans took the overall final standing with the timing of 86 hours, 12 minutes and 22 seconds.
Evans said, “I haven’t had time to consider that aspect, to be honest, it’s been a long, long process and it will take a long time to realise what it means.”
Andy Schleck was runner-up with 1 minute and 34 seconds behind the Australian while Frank Schleck grabbed third place with difference of 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
Thomas Voeckler was in fourth place while three time world champion Contador grabbed fifth place.
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