Mark Cavendish – “I got to show I'm the fastest guy in the world...”

“We’ve got such a strong team here and we’re consistently showing that. We had to come away with a stage win sooner or later and after the other day when we missed out on catching the escape, I wasn’t going to let them down. A lot of British fans think that cycling is only the Olympics and the Tour de France and they don’t get the chance to appreciate how much I’ve done in other races so at least I got to show them that I am the fastest guy in the world. _ “It was really close it the end. There was a time when I thought we were going to catch the escape way too early and I had a chat with Thor and I said, ‘Maybe we’re going a bit too quickly.’ He told me, ‘No, they’re playing with us, they’re going to accelerate again.’ _ “It just goes to show the class of Thor and the experience that he has. We had Gerolsteiner, Credit Agricole and my Columbia team all going full gas just to bring the break down. We only just got them on the line. It just goes to show that anything can happen. _ “I think the green jersey is a bit out of my reach. I didn’t come here with the aim of taking that; I just wanted to win stages. We’ve come so close so far – we’ve had a few top fives already – and our team had to stand on the top of the podium eventually and today we did it.”