MARK CAVENDISH answered his critics with victory on stage 13 of the Tour de France yesterday but more than a minute of Chris Froome's lead over Alberto Contador was blown away by crosswinds.
Cavendish awoke to headlines in L'Equipe declaring his reign as the pre-eminent sprinter of the day over after Marcel Kittel's third stage win on Thursday. But the Omega Pharma-Quick Step rider responded with his second stage success of this year's race and 25th of his career, putting him joint third in the all-time standings with Andre Leducq.
What should have been a straightforward flat stage before a bunch sprint finish was instead an ever-changing drama as crosswinds blew across the roads from Tours, splitting the peloton several times.
When Cavendish, 28, latched on to a break from Team Saxo-Tinkoff in the final 30km to ensure he was in position to win, Froome (Team Sky) could not follow and Contador reduced his overall lead by 69 seconds. It could have been worse – and it certainly was for Alejandro Valverde who began the day second overall but suffered a mechanical problem just as the peloton was parting, and eventually crossed the line almost 10 minutes down.
In a new-look general classification Froome's advantage has been cut to two minutes 28 seconds, while second place is occupied by the little-fancied Bauke Mollema (Belkin) who followed Cavendish and Peter Sagan home in third place. Contador lurks third overall ahead of today's stage to Lyon.
"We didn't expect to make so much damage," Contador said. "There was a moment that we almost gave up. It was 10 seconds, 10 seconds, but they kept pushing the pedals.
"It's an incredible demonstration of the strength of this team. The Tour is far from over. A thousand things can happen any day."
"The guys were tactically brilliant [on Thursday] with 110% commitment and I let them down at the end," Cavendish said. "For them to come back today and ride even harder even sooner just shows what a special group of team-mates I have.
"The race organisers gave the combative award to the whole team today – I just picked it up on their behalf – and that speaks volumes about the incredible ride the guys produced."
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