Stage 15: Mark Cavendish has won his fourth stage in this year’s Tour de France with Ben Swift sixth
17th July 2011 – Britain’s Mark Cavendish powered to the fourth stage win of this year’s Tour de France on Sunday, a victory that strengthened his overall lead in the Tour’s points competition. Cavendish blasted past the rest of the pack at the end of stage fifteen’s 192.5 kilometer run from Limoux to Montpellier, with American Tyler Farrar in second and Italy’s Alessandro Petacchi in third.
Since turning pro in 2007, Cavendish has now taken seventy wins, including twenty-nine Grand Tour stage and nineteen in the Tour de France. Today’s victory is his eighth in the 2011 season. “It’s not me, it’s my team that really made this victory possible,” Cavendish said afterwards. “Right from the start, all nine riders did a great job today and after a few very hard days in the mountains, that’s not so easy.”
“I was tired after the Pyrenees too, but I use different muscles for sprinting than for climbing, so I was ok. It was a difficult stage, with lots of attacks at the end but my team kept control of things. Without them my win wouldn’t have happened.” As for the green jersey, Cavendish said “I’ll keep trying and see what I can do. Hopefully I’ll be able to take it all the way to Paris.”
“”Triple whammy of endorphines today! Thrill of winning, rest day tomorrow & I’m seeing the beautiful smile of @petatodd tonight.”
Ben Swift told his team’s website “It was pretty manic. I got looked after really well by Edvald and Geraint. It was fast and I could have just done with one more person in there but obviously you need a lot of luck and a lot of speed to beat Cav. I gave it my best shot and got sixth.”
“I’m actually feeling better as the race is going on. I was probably a bit in awe of it all at the start and mentally drained from it all. But I felt better through the Pyrenees; yesterday I was climbing pretty good on what was probably one of the hardest stages of the Tour so I was really happy with that. You can see the whole peloton is pretty tired now and if I can keep going like that I’ll be good next week.”
Sean Yates, Team Sky Sports Director: “It was a good effort. It was a super-fast finish and after 15 stages it showed that it was right to give Swifty a chance. G and Edvald gave him some assistance in the finish.The plan was to keep Rigoberto [Uran] out of trouble. As it happened it was a fairly straightforward day and there was no drama. Although the wind was strong it never had any real influence apart from making things go really fast.”
“There was too much of a tailwind. But when all the teams think [a split] is going to happen it doesn’t happen because they are all up there. Obviously Cav took the win after his team had rode all day so hats off to him for coming up with the goods. We just needed to get through the day and then tomorrow is a rest day before the Alps.â€
Previous Stages
STAGE 1 | STAGE 2 | STAGE 3 | STAGE 4 |Â Â STAGE 5 | STAGE 6 | STAGE 7 | STAGE 8 | STAGE 9 | STAGE 10 |
| STAGE 11 | STAGE 12 | STAGE 13 | STAGE 14 |
Stage 15
RESULTS
1. Mark Cavendish, HTC-Highroad 4:20:24
2. Tyler Farrar, Team Garmin-Cervelo
3. Alessandro Petacchi, Lampre – ISD
4. Daniel Oss, Liquigas-Cannondale
5. Jose Joaquin Rojas, Movistar Team
6. Ben Swift, Sky Procycling
7. Gerald Ciolek, Quickstep Cycling Team
8. Tony Gallopin, Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne
9. Francisco Ventoso, Movistar Team
10. Sébastien Hinault, AG2R La Mondiale
Overall
1. Thomas Voeckler, Team Europcar 65:24:33
2. Fränk Schleck, Leopard Trek 0:01:49
3. Cadel Evans, BMC Racing Team 0:02:06
4. Andy Schleck, Leopard Trek 0:02:15
5. Ivan Basso,Liquigas-Cannondale 0:03:16
6. Samuel Sanchez, Euskaltel-Euskadi 0:03:44
7. Alberto Contador, Saxo Bank Sungard 0:04:00
8. Damiano Cunego, Lampre – ISD 0:04:01
9. Thomas Danielson, Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:05:46
10. Kevin De Weert, Quickstep Cycling Team 0:06:18
