Cavendish, looking for a 29th Tour career stage win, was boxed in when the sprint started and could only finish eighth, surrendering the lead to Sagan in the points classification.
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But his 2015 season was wrecked by illness and he wasn’t even selected by his then-Giant team to ride the Tour.
Kittel (Etixx-Quick Step) defeated fast-finishing Frenchman Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie), to win in a photo-finish by a tyre’s width.
“It feels like my first stage win again”, he said. “It was a very hard moment in my career”. It was the first time in this Tour that we have actually got to do that. “I can’t believe it”.
One of the world’s premier road cyclists and a regular on the Grand Tour circuit, Tasmanian Richie Porte will get his first chance at Olympic competition on the arduous roads of Rio.
“I saw a bar but afterwards there was no time”.
The final 3km of the Peyrol climb averages a gruelling 12% climb, even going as high as 15% in some short sections, just to really burn the legs with more climbs ahead of the riders. I’m glad that we took things into our own hands.
Lotto-Soudal set a ferocious pace in the final kilometre, but were unable to make it count as Kittel showed his sprinting prowess to be at the front with the line in sight.
Cavendish’s victory was a continuation of the excellent form he produced to win stage one on Saturday, and he now has an opportunity to complete a hat-trick on a flat fourth stage today that should also end in a sprint.
I normally know when I win or I lose.
“I’m young but I’m a victor”.
With time bonuses on the line for the first three finishers, those last three could all take over the yellow jersey with victory. But this year Quintana is the top seed at Movistar, especially with Valverde having already raced the Giro d’Italia in which he finished third behind Italian victor Vincenzo Nibali (Astana), who is also at the Tour to help Italian Fabio Aru (Astana), and Colombian runner-up Esteban Chaves (Orica-BikeExchange), who is not at the Tour but preparing for the Vuelta a España later this year.
“He was strong in this finish”.
“I am incredibly happy with this second win at the Tour de France”. But I’m happy for that.
But after taking three stages while with Team Sky in 2012, Cavendish won three stages over the next three Tours, including 2014 when he crashed out on the opening stage in Harrogate.
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The 31-year-old said his winter move to Team Dimension Data – the African-based squad which supports the Qhubeka charity – has given him an entire new objective on a bike.
