Mark Cavendish Wins his 19th Tour de France Stage in Stage 15 Sprint

Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile, calls himself the fastest man alive. This would seem egotistical or even ridiculous if he didn’t prove it so often. Stage 15 of the 2011 Tour de France offered him his latest opportunity, and he made full use of it, winning both the intermediate sprint and the final contest, his 19th since 2008.

After the race, Cavendish gave all the credit to his team. “I’m lucky that I’ve got a group of guys like I have to keep me out of trouble at the front and that kind of took the pressure off a bit but it’s still hard,” he told letour.com.

“It was up and down, there were crosswinds the whole day; it was a difficult stage but it was a sprint and the guys controlled it. They delivered me perfectly to the last 200 meters.”

“It means a lot to me to see what the guys do. They work incredibly hard for me. They helped me get through the mountains and it wasn’t easy to be able to get here. To do that [win … again] is all about respect.”

Stage 15 was the final flat stage before Paris; the sprinters had had this one circled since the day they got their route books. There was a single Cat 4 climb in the first third of the stage; nothing that would impede the speedsters from their appointed rounds on the streets of Montpellier.

There was a breakaway of course; at kilometer two five riders got away, and the last of them was not caught until 3.3 km from the finish. Almost immediately Philippe Gilbert led a couple of riders on a late flyer, but it went nowhere—the sprinters were determined that this stage was theirs.

The chase and catch took longer than anticipated—the breakaway riders really wanted the stage win—so HTC’s leadout train was depleted by the pace by the time it entered the final kilometer. Even with just two riders—Mark Renshaw and Matt Goss—leading, Mark Cavendish is unstoppable when matched by solo riders, as he was here.

Garmin-Cervelo’s Tyler Farrar had help reaching Cav’s wheel; once he got there, he was on his own, tucked in behind Daniel Oss of Liquigas. When Mark Renshaw pulled off and Cavendish exploded, he had a bike-length’s advantage immediately.

Tyler Farrar made an excellent run, coming within a wheel's diameter of Cavendish at the line; Lampre’s Alessandro Petacchi made a long, strong solo run down the left side to capture third. But Mark Cavendish really wasn’t troubled; he probably could have kicked again had he needed to.

The win is the fourth for the Manx Missile in the 2011 Tour and the 19th of his career. If he wins the final sprint on the streets of Paris a week from Sunday, he will be within two of André Darrigade, the winningest Tour sprinter of history, and within two of Lance Armstrong.

If Mark Cavendish can keep his health, it seems unlikely that he will not surpass the 34 stage wins of Eddy Merckx and become the winningest Tour cyclist since the race started—and he will probably do it before he turns 30.

2011 Tour de France Stage 15 Result					General Classification after Stage 15
1	Mark Cavendish	HTC-Highroad	4:20:24		1	Thomas Voeckler	Europcar	65:24:33
2	Tyler Farrar	Garmin-Cervelo	0:00		2	Fränk Schleck	Leopard Trek	0:01:49
3	Alessandro Petacchi	Lampre	0:00		3	Cadel Evans	BMC	0:02:06
4	Daniel Oss	Liquigas	0:00		4	Andy Schleck	Leopard Trek	0:02:15
5	José Rojas	Movistar	0:00		5	Ivan Basso	Liquigas	0:03:16
6	Ben Swift	Sky	0:00		6	Samuel Sanchez	Euskaltel-Euskadi	0:03:44
7	Gerald Ciolek	Quickstep	0:00		7	Alberto Contador	Saxo Bank	0:04:00
8	Tony Gallopin	Cofidis	0:00		8	Damiano Cunego	Lampre	0:04:01
9	Francisco Ventoso	Movistar	0:00		9	Thomas Danielson	Garmin-Cervelo	0:05:46
10	Sébastien Hinault	AG2R	0:00		10	Kevin De Weert	Quickstep	0:06:18