Mark Cavendish wins his 4th stage victory and Voeckler retains overall lead in 2011 Tour de France
HTC-Highroad team’s Mark Cavendish showed his tremendous performance and won his fourth stage victory in the 15th stage of 2011 Tour de France on Sunday, July 17.
The race started in Limoux and ended in Montpellier. The 26-year-old Mark took a total of 4 hours, 20 minutes and 24 seconds to cover the distance of 187 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Cavendish said, “The battle isn’t over until we cross the line on the Champs Elysees so we will keep plugging away, I struggled a lot in the mountains and for them I wanted it to be worth it. It was technically difficult, lots of
winds, lots of attacks but we stayed disciplined."
Tyler Farrar of Garmin-Cervelo team’s was the runner-up and Alessandro Petacchi of Lampre-ISD finished in the third position. A total of 116 cyclists crossed the finish-line, while Fabian Cancellara also tried his best to take a lead, but he failed and grabbed
117th place with a difference of 23 seconds.
Three-time Tour de France Champion, Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank Sungard), did not show his good performance and grabbed the 43th place.
A group of five riders made their first breakaway and Niki Terpstra of Quick Step was the last cyclist, who pulled back while Philippe Gilbert increased his pace and launched the attack.
Gilbert was joined by other two riders, Anthony Roux of FDJ and Marco Marcato of Vacansoleil, but Belgian failed to took a lead and moving back in the 2 kilometres banner.
Cavendish said, "I cross the finish line first – I have done it 19 times – but there's only one person who can do that. Today two of my team-mates rode for 190km and the rest delivered me to the line. The commitment of those guys is amazing. I'm incredibly
lucky."
Daniel Oss (Liquigas-Cannondale) took the title of best young rider ahead of Ben Swift (Sky Procycling) and Gerald Ciolek (Quickstep). Niki Terpstra (Quickstep) took title the most aggressive rider.
Thomas Voeckler took an overall lead with a timing of 65 hours, 24 minutes and 34 seconds. Frank Schleck was the runner-up with a difference of 1 minute and 49 seconds, while Cadel Evans finished third with 2 minutes and 6 seconds behind Thomas.
After two days of rest the next stage will start in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux and end in Gap. All the cyclists will cover the distance of 163 kilometres.
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