Sky on a high after tricky first week
Briton Froome the overall Tour de France leader as compatriot Cavendish finishes ahead of the pack in seventh stage
Briton Mark Cavendish sprinted to victory in the seventh stage of the Tour de France on Friday for his 26th career win in cycling’s greatest race.
The Etixx-Quick Step rider, who crashed out in the first stage last year, had appeared far from his brilliant best in the first sprints of the Tour but he finally delivered in Brittany.
Cavendish perfectly timed his effort to leapfrog German Andre Greipel (Lotto-Soudal), who finished second after winning two stages this year.
Slovakian Peter Sagan finished third.
“I’m super happy,” said Cavendish, who is eight shy of Belgian Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins on the Tour.
“It was a long time [I had not won] on the Tour de France, I was kind of impatient.”
Cavendish had not raised his arms as a winner on the Tour since the 13th stage in St Amand Montrond in 2013.
Briton Chris Froome of Team Sky was the overall leader after German Tony Martin abandoned the race with a collarbone fracture on Thursday.
Team Sky’s confidence was soaring on Friday after Froome, chasing a second Tour de France title, had survived a treacherous first week of racing.
The British rider, thought to be vulnerable on the flat, windswept and sometimes cobbled roads of the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France, was the overall leader and his best may still be to come.
“It’s been a fantastic week, we’re in a position where we don’t have time to gain over rivals on the team time trial [today],” Sky’s sports director Nicolas Portal told reporters after the seventh stage.
Froome, who crashed out of the race 12 months ago after winning the event in 2013, had a sizeable advantage over the other members of the so-called ‘Big Four’.
Spain’s Alberto Contador (TinkoffSaxo), attempting a rare Giro d’ItaliaTour double, was seventh, 36 seconds off the pace. Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) of Italy was 12th, 1:38 behind Froome, while Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar) stayed 16th, 1:56 adrift of the leader.
There will be a rest day after today’s team time trial before the race then hits the Pyrenees.
“I think we’ve got a really strong team here especially on that parcours [route] for the team time trial, it’s very testing, I think we’re up for it,” Froome said.
Meanwhile, Italian Luca Paolini has been provisionally suspended after the Katusha rider failed a dope test for cocaine on the Tour de France, his team and the International Cycling Union (UCI) said on Friday.
“In accordance with UCI antidoping Rules, the rider has been provisionally suspended until the adjudication of the affair,” the UCI said in a statement.
The sport’s governing body said that the sample was collected on Tuesday.