Cavendish Collects Tour Stage Win Number 12

The Progress Report
The longest stage of the 2010 Tour de France, a 227.5km journey from Montargis to Gueugnon, started at 12.02pm with 188 riders at the sign on.  The stage featured four small categorized hills – at Bouhy (69.5km), La Chapelle-Saint-André (91.5km), Montarons (179.5km) and Croix de l’Arbre (204.5km). The intermediate sprints were in Saint-Fargeau (47km), Moulins-Engilbert (163km) and Luzy (195.5km).

Escape Forms Without Hassle
For the fifth day in succession, the first men to attempt an escape were able to succeed. Perget (GCE) jumped ahead in the first kilometer and was joined by Lang (OLO) and Perez Moreno (EUS) and the peloton happily waved goodbye and allowed them to build a significant advantage. By the 20km mark the trio had a lead of 7’00” and HTC-Columbia put four riders on the front of the peloton to police the gains. The average speed of the first hour was 42.3km/h. At the 43km mark, the peloton was 7’45” behind. There were a few showers during the second hour and the temperature was 22.5 degrees after an hour and a half of racing.
The maximum gain of the escape was 8’00” at the 63km mark. Grabsch (THR) and O’Grady (SAX) shared the workload at the head of the peloton and slowly but surely reeled in the escape: 5’50” at 118km, 2’55” at 165km, 1’05” at 25km to go.

Counter-Attacking Candidates
Champion (ALM) attacked the peloton on the final climb, with 25km to go in the stage and then Charteau (BTL) followed his compatriot’s example. Just as they were about to catch the stage leaders, Perget attacked. He was solo until 18km to go before being caught by Champion, Perez Moreno, Lang and Charteau. With 15km to go, they had a lead of 21”. The escape was over with five kilometers to go.

Cavendish Takes Two In A Row
After the capture some of the GC riders had a brief stint at the front of the peloton: Contador and Rogers were up there, one to stay out of trouble, the other to start the lead-out for a team-mate. In the rush to the line, the HTC-Columbia team had numbers ahead of Lampre but then Garmin came around the left side and three from that squad led under the ‘flamme rouge’. Around the last turn Dean led before Hunter hit out but up the right side came Renshaw who dropped Cavendish off at the 230m to go mark. The winner of stage five finished off the job again, easily beating Farrar and Petacchi to the line.
Thor Hushovd finished 10th and keeps his green jersey with 118 points, four more than Petacchi and 13 more than McEwen (KAT) who was fourth again today.
The first 14 riders were awarded the same time as the stage winner. Cancellara finished 41st, in a group that was three seconds behind Cavendish. The Swiss rider will wear the yellow jersey in stage seven.