Mark Cavendish became the first rider in Tour history to win 4 or more stages in four consecutive Tours when he was successful in Stage 15 overnight, a 187km transitional stage from Limoux to Montpellier. The Manx man once again benefited from the perfect lead out from his HTC-High Road teammates to take his 4th win at this year’s tour (and 19th overall) from fellow sprinters Tyler Farrar and Alessandro Pettachi. In taking the win, Cavendish increased his lead in the points classification to 37 over Jose Joaquin Rojas who could only manage 5th on the stage. There was no change to any of the other classifications.
In what is arguably the last stage for the sprinters before the finish on the Champs Elysees, Cavendish was never going to be beaten. The stage took the usual form of a flat day out, with a 5-man breakaway allowed to garner around a 3 minute advantage before being reeled in by a combination of Europecar and HTC. Apart from that, not much else happened, although Philippe Gilbert once again tried to break away from the peleton in the closing kilometres to pick up a few extra Green Jersey points. He was easily snapped up by the charging pack however, and was nowhere in the final sprint as a result.
Personally I think those kind of moves are tactically poor from Gilbert, and he probably wastes a lot of energy in undertaken them. He may be being forced into desperation however as the points classification slips from his grasp. Gilbert doesn’t have the pure power to contest a pure sprint finish, and was again beaten into minor placings by Cavendish and Rojas at the day’s intermediate sprint. He probably needs to win Tuesday night’s finish into Gap to have any hope of wearing the Green Jersey on the final podium in Paris.
Yellow Jersey – Thomas Voeckler
Green Jersey – Mark Cavendish
Polka Dot Jersey – Jelle Vanendert
White Jersey – Rigoberto Uran
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