Richard Moore - Etape

Monfort, George Hincapie and Tony Martin now mass at the front, Cavendish behind them. They reel in Sánchez, while Ballan and Lefèvre hang on. They tear down the descent. Cavendish takes one last drink before, with 2.2km remaining, and a little uphill kick, they catch the last two escapees.

‘It was wet on the descent,’ says Cavendish. ‘It had been a dry day, but it was wet – that was strange. I didn’t understand that. We could see the two guys up the road, behind the motorbikes – again. Maxime was riding. Tony was riding. And Milram were riding for Ciolek.

‘And we caught them with a couple of ks to go. George was still there for me, and he went first. Then Tony.’ Cavendish screws up his face as he recalls the effort made by Martin. ‘Tony did, uphill, about a 1,600m lead out. And it was uphill; he was slowing down, slowing down, but hanging on at the front. I knew it was a kind of uphill finish; but it still looked like a sprint. You could see the finish. It was coming. I just whacked it in my 14[-tooth sprocket: a relatively low gear for a sprint]. Because Tony was slowing, slowing, slowing. So it was your acceleration that was the most important part of the sprint.’

There was a sharp right just before the slight uphill. The burly figure of Hushovd lurked behind Cavendish. They go into a tight roundabout; Freire misjudges it and goes straight across the grass in the middle, but doesn’t fall. He bunnyhops down the other side and ends up back where he was: eighth in line. At the kite, with a kilometre to go, Martin leads, Cavendish is second, Hushovd third.

Over a bridge, high above a river, and it’s clear that Hushovd fancies it. He glances around; he knows there’s a climb coming; he can out-power Cavendish on this kind of finish. Watching Martin is painful: he swerves from one side of the road to the other, and, with 500 metres remaining, gets out of the saddle: one last effort.

Cavendish flicks his head to the left, glancing over his shoulder, as Martin fades away and Ciolek starts to sprint. Hushovd begins his effort at exactly the same moment as Cavendish. ‘I’m in the 14,’ says Cavendish, ‘sitting there, waiting for Tony to swing over; I leave it, leave it, leave it, then I go.’ He nods, like a football manager mimicking a header by one of his players.

Cavendish’s eyes blaze as he replays the sprint. ‘And because I’m in a smaller gear than the others, who are in the 11, I get that gap. It was slow. But I got the gap. Nobody could get near me.’

Now he sits back, satisfied. More than that: vindicated. In Aubenas, he crossed the line a full length clear, five fingers held up, one for each stage win. And in Paris, two days later, he would make it six.

Classement

1Mark Cavendish, Great Britain, Team Columbia-HTC, 3 hours, 50 minutes, 35 secs

2Thor Hushovd, Norway, Cervélo, same time

3Gerald Ciolek, Germany, Milram, s.t.

4Greg Van Avermaet, Belgium, Silence-Lotto, s.t.

5Óscar Freire, Spain, Rabobank, s.t.

6Jérôme Pineau, France, Quick-Step, s.t.

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