Thaindian News

This Wednesday British rider Mark Cavendish won the stage 11 of Tour de France 2009. Tyler Farrar of the US and Yauheni Hutarovich of Belarus were at the 2nd and 3rd spots respectively. With this performance Cavendish has ensured his fourth ’stage win’ in the tournament.

Stage 11 of Tour de France was 192 Km long and started from Vatan ending at Saint Fargeu. This stage has been ‘relatively flat’ and has seen two ‘category-4′ climbs along the stretch.

Almost akin to the nature of the stretch the initial part of the race at stage 11, saw very less ‘attacks’; only the 26th minute seeing the first significant sprint from two riders namely Marcin Sapa and Van Summeren. The stage 11 saw some crashes also. Ryder Hesjedal got tangled into the wheels of another rider resulting in a big crash. Another rider who fell down was Nocentini but he seemed unperturbed by it as he went onto say, “I was in a fall, but nothing too serious. I didn’t hurt myself. I managed to get back up and finish calmly.” Another name to reckon with, Lance Armstrong manged to finish within the ‘main pack’ and this has ensured that he stays at the overall third position.

Cavendish on the other hand has taken the green jersey from Norway’s Thor Hushovd. Hushovd managed to finish at the 5th position. A section of the media and the fans have already started speculating whether Cavendish would be able to put up an equally impressive performance at the next stage that is the stage 12 of the tour or not. The stage 12 will be 131 miles and would consist of six small hills along the stretch.