In
recent times it has either been as a time trialist like David Millar or
Chris Broadman, or as a part of a breakaway as happened with Sean
Yates. But when you are the world madison champion the bunch finish of a
long flat stage in le Tour is nothing to get too worked up about. So
Mark Cavendish (on the right) saw off experienced tour sprinters Oscar
Freire, Erik Zabel and Thor Hushovd to see his first stage win in this
race to go with his two in the Giro d'Italia earlier this year.
It
will go some way to make up for this disappointment he faced last year
when he crashed on the aproach to Cantebury when he wanted to start his
Tour career with a win on home soil.
The 23 year-old is set to team up with Bradley Wiggins for the Maddison in Beijing
next month but he is likely to see out the tour first, maybe hoping to
win on the Champs Elysées. That hold no worries for Rod Ellingworth Team
GB's cycling coach who earlier this week told the Times:
"I want him to finish the Tour and he does, too. He'll gain a lot from that in terms of experience and also form ahead of the Olympics. Am I worried about the effect that three weeks on the road will have on his track form ahead of the Olympics? No. He's so good anyway — his speed, his cadence, his ability to ride the track — that it all comes automatically to him."
As with sports reports of the time this was written in the style of my alter ego Lionel de Livi
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