Mark Cavendish (HTC-Highroad) won his 19th Tour de France stage beating Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervelo), Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) and Daniel Oss (Liquigas-Cannondale) in a sprint finish in the 187 km Limoux-Montpellier stage.
Those 19 stage victories have come in only 4 years of racing the Tour: 2008, four stages; 2009 six stages; 2010 five stages in 2010, and four stages so far in 2011. Cavendish, "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. I have an incredible bunch of guys. The commitment of those guys is amazing. I'm incredibly lucky."
"I lost my chance to win when some riders took me off from Cavendish's wheel," Petacchi explained. "I had to try to recover and in doing so I had to face the wind, but my fitness was good and so I overtook some riders, but not enough. I thank my team mates: Hondo is perfect as usual, but also the other riders from my team supported me very well".
Daniel Oss, fourth : "I tried, and greatly. When I took the wheel of Cavendish, I actually believed it was possible to win. Then the fourth, but that's okay. It makes me think that if I improve I can win in the group sprints."
The GC remains unchanged. Voeckler continues in the yellow jersey although he deosn't believe he can hold it to Paris saying, "I can't win the Tour. I will give all I can to keep the jersey, but when I look at the guys who are just behind me and when I look at the stages that are ahead I don't know how I could win."
Top 10 GC:
1 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar 65:24:34
2 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:01:49
3 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:02:06
4 Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:02:15
5 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:03:16
6 Samuel Sanchez Gonzalez (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:03:44
7 Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Saxo Bank Sungard 0:04:00
8 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre - ISD 0:04:01
9 Thomas Danielson (USA) Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:05:46
10 Kevin De Weert (Bel) Quickstep Cycling Team 0:06:18
Photo: Bettini
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