Cavendish takes control but will not remove foot from Tour pedal

Cavendish won Sunday’s 193-kilometre 15th stage from Limoux to Montpellier in supreme style to move 37 points clear in the race for the points classification leader’s maillot vert.

The statistics tell the story – this was his 70th professional win; his 19th Tour victory, becoming the first man to win at least four road stages in four successive Tours; and he is fast approaching Eddy Merckx’s all-time record of 34 stage successes. All at the age of 26.

After wins in Cap Frehel, Chateauroux, Lavaur and now Montpellier on the 2011 Tour, Cavendish holds a commanding lead in the race for the green jersey, with Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar) second on 282 and Philippe Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) third on 248.

But Cavendish (HTC-Highroad) is all too aware there is no margin for error after losing out in his bid for a first green jersey by 10 points to Thor Hushovd in 2009 and 11 points to Alessandro Petacchi in 2010.

Cavendish, who won four stages in 2008, six in 2009 and five in 2010, said: “I’ll keep trying. I’ve got quite a clear advantage, but you can’t rest on it.

“Nothing’s guaranteed. Two years ago I thought I had the green jersey, Thor went on an attack in the mountains and got it back, I was disqualified from a stage and lost a load of points.

“Last year I was completely out of the running and I ended up losing by 11 points.

“The battle’s not over until we cross the line on the Champs-Elysees so we’ll keep plugging away.

“I know Gilbert is quite far back but he desperately wants this jersey. He’s an incredibly talented bike rider, he’ll find a way to get points.

“Rojas can climb a lot better than me – there’s some intermediate sprints that he can get points in that I can’t.

“I’ll just keep plugging away to try and get points as best I can.

“Hopefully we can stand on the podium in Paris with this on the shoulders.”

While yesterday Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervelo) and Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) were Cavendish’s nearest rivals, finishing second and third, respectively, his challengers for the points prize also bared their teeth.

At the day’s intermediate sprint, Cavendish led the peloton across the line behind the day’s five-man breakaway for 10 points, with Rojas second and Gilbert third.

Cavendish claimed 55 points in all today, with 45 for the stage success, but he will need all of his 37-point cushion in the six remaining days of racing.

Today’s rest day is followed by the 162.5km 16th stage from Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Gap and both Gilbert and Rojas can be expected to accrue more points than Cavendish as the race enters the Alps.

In a technical finale yesterday, Belgian Gilbert made a late surge, which was ultimately in vain.

Gilbert suffered for his effort, finishing out of the points in 28th place on the line, while Rojas was fifth, one place ahead of Yorkshire’s Team Sky rider Ben Swift.

Cavendish, paying tribute to his team, added: “I think he (Gilbert) was going for the stage win.

“It was a difficult finish, a hilly run-in. It was the type of finish he could do that on.

“It’s easy to panic when Gilbert goes and to try to pull it back too quickly. But our guys stayed in control and brought him back slowly. It was an incredible ride by them.”

American Danny Pate and Dane Lars Bak rode for more than four hours on the front of the peloton on a windy coastal route in pursuit of the day’s breakaway to set up Cavendish for victory. The 26-year-old from the Isle of Man questioned why other sprinters’ teams did not also chase the breakaway.

He added: “The other teams don’t want to ride for a sprint. What’s the point in bringing a sprinter here? If I was in a team that didn’t want to ride for a sprint it would be a bit of a knock to my ego.

“There were two guys that rode all day to control a group of five and the other six guys rode at the final to deliver me to 200m.

“The fact the guys rode out of their skin means I can’t fail.”

The general classification contenders were also keen to stay at the front of a nervous peloton to avoid any possible time loss caused by a split as a result of cross winds.

Unlike in 2009, when Bradley Wiggins was among those to lose valuable seconds, the group stayed together yesterday, with Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) retaining the race leader’s yellow jersey as the top of the general classification standings remained unchanged.