Cavendish hits the jackpot in the Tour de France
Photo: courtesy Wim Dingemanse
Photo: courtesy Wim Dingemanse
Team Columbia’s Mark Cavendish blasted to a first stage win in the Tour de France on Wednesday’s stage from Cholet to Chateauroux. The 23-year-old Briton finished over a bike length ahead of three-times World Champion Oscar Freire of Spain, with German Erik Zabel in third.
It was Cavendish eighth road-race win of 2008 and 19th road-race victory of his career. In a remarkable year so far for Team Columbia, Cavendish win is the 46th of 2008 for the men’s team.
“This is far and away the biggest win of my career.” Cavendish said afterwards.
“Everyone knows what the Tour is, when you’re a kid you watch it on tv, you dream of being there. I’ve always known how important the Tour is.”
Strongly supported by all eight Columbia team-mates in the frantic finale, Cavendish said their hard work “shows just how self-sacrificing they are.”
“They did everything they could do to help me there, and I had to do my best to pay them back and win.”
“They’ve worked with total commitment all week. Today we had to top the podium. I couldn’t really come away without the victory.”
Although Olympic ambitions are high on Cavendish’s list of priorities this year, he is adamant that he has no plans to abandon.
“I want to go all the way to Paris. To plan to do otherwise would be disrespectful to the organisers, my team, the other riders and the race.”
Discussing the team’s role in the finale, Cavendish said that German team-mate Gerald Ciolek “led me out from 600 metres. That’s a long way to go in the headwind, but you saw how fast he went past the other guys.”
“Then when [rival rider Mark] Renshaw went with [sprinter Thor Hushovd] with 250 metres to that was a bit early in the sprint for me to accelerate.”
“But after Renshaw had given Hushovd a good lead-out then my own final acceleration would have been less efficent if I had waited for my usual distance.”
“So I had to go for it when they did.”
“Fortunately my strength was enough to take me all the way to the line. I was able to hold it all the way there and it all paid off.”
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