He’s been trying for four years; now, in his fifth Tour de France, Mark Cavendish looks all but certain to wear the Maillot Vert when the race ends in Paris. The HTC Highroad rider needs to just get through the next three mountain stages to ensure that he takes one of the big targets of his career.
Cavendish finished 43rd on yesterday’s stage, rolling in alone, six minutes 48 seconds behind the leading trio of Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervélo), Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky Procycling) and Hushovd’s team-mate Ryder Hesjedal. He finished out of the points but, crucially, his rival Philippe Gilbert picked up just two points for finishing 15th. Neither were placed in the intermediate sprint.
The net result is that Cavendish heads into today’s stage with 319 points on the clock, 34 more than Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Movistar) and 69 more than Gilbert.
“We wanted a big group to go in the escape and that actually helped us,” he said after the stage. “I didn’t have to sprint for maximum points at the intermediate and, anyway, the break went and stayed away. If you have a look at the finish, I wasn’t too far down the order consider how close the final climb was to the end. We’ll keep on trying to keep the green jersey.
“I thought I was going to get back on to the main peloton going over the top…that’s why I gave it everything in the last kilometer but I couldn’t quite get back on. Normally, with a longer descent, I would have gotten back on but I’m pleased with how things went today.”
He has once again denied suggestions by his rivals that he takes tows on climbs. The claim was made by Filippo Pozzato in 2008, and has been repeated several times since. He said yesterday that there is no truth in the allegations, and that he now asks his team-mates to take bottles from the team car and hand them to him. This ensures that nobody can photograph a handover from the car which could be misconstrued as a tow.
Cavendish’s bid to win the Maillot Vert has been aided by revised points classification for the Tour. Aside from the 20 points available for the winner at the single intermediate sprint point featured each day, 45 points are handed out to the victor on flat stages. Medium mountain legs and high mountain stages reward the victor with 30 and 20 points respectively, and time trials with 20.
He can still be overtaken by Rojas and Gilbert, but mathematically it is very difficult for them to get the necessary points back. If the points difference were to remain the same heading into the last stage, Rojas would need to win on the Champs Elysées with Cavendish eleventh or worse.
Essentially, it would take a huge turnaround for anyone other than Cavendish to wear green in Paris. The biggest obstacle to his victory is the three days of climbing ahead.