The Tour de France reached the 10th leg of its journey, passing through a host of challenging landscapes and awesome biking. We got to see a big share of predictable and unpredictable wins. Now, with the elite Tour heading towards its finish gradually, the scenario gets more and more tough everyday. After Sunday’s stage 9, the riders got a hard earned break for the whole of next day. It was back to work on Tuesday and the eventual winner of this leg of the journey is the Columbian, Mark Cavendish. By clinching this win, Cavendish is on to his third win in this year’s Tour de France.

According to the reports of The Guardian, Cavendish was alongside his teammates from the Team Columbia- HTC most of the way. However, with 750m to go, he had charged past determinedly, getting threatened minutely by the Norwegian Thor Hushovd (who had got in to the sprint a little late). Cavendish successfully managed to beat the competition from Hushovd and made his way past, to claim to his rightful win. Hushovd finished second closely followed by Tyler Farrar, who came in at third.

There was no change in the overall standings however; Italian Rinaldo Nocentini still managed to cling on to the Yellow Jersey. The difference in points between that of Hushovd and Cavendish has been narrowed down to six now, with Cavendish lagging behind the Norwegian only by a very narrow margin, as he holds on to the Green Jersey with his 147 points. Tony Martin holds on to the White Jersey.

Whether or not there will be any significant changes to the over all standings in Tour de France 2009 after the stage 11, is something that we have to wait and find out.