Cav Keeps The Wins Coming...

The Progress Report
It was raining before the start of the 15th stage but dry by the time the race got underway at 12.59pm. There were 170 men at the sign on of the race from Limoux to Montpellier which featured on categorized climb, the cote de Villespassans (cat-4 at 82km) and an intermediate sprint in Montagnac (at 146.5km). The temperature at the start was just 15 degrees Celsius and the weather conditions were expected to have an influence on how the stage was contested as it was particularly windy in the Aude and Hérault departments with the wind blowing from a north-easterly direction (ie. side/cross for the race to Montpellier) at about 50km/h.
Once again, as soon as the flag fell to signal the start of the stage, an FDJ rider attacked. By 3km there were five in the lead by 1’05, they were: Delage (FDJ), Tepstra (QST), Ignatiev (KAT), Dumoulin (COF) and Delaplace (SAU). The peloton allowed them to build an advantage of 3’55” at 16km but then two HTC riders were put on the front and the quintet was kept within a reasonable distance: 3’10” at 40km, for example. The average speed for the opening hour was 45.1km/h. The peloton was pushed along by a favorable wind in the opening stanza of the stage. Eventually, after one hour and 50 minutes of racing, the advantage of the escapees grew to over four minutes (4’15” at 80km – this was the maximum gain of the break). Ignatiev jumped ahead to take the one point at the climb when the peloton was at 3’10”. At 85km nine from HTC moved to the front of the peloton. The average speed for the second hour was 41.9km/h.

Giving Five Escapees A Day At The Front
It was status quo for the time gains for most of the stage with HTC team essentially keeping the escapees within three minutes of the escapees. This dropped to 1’55” after three hours of racing. The average speed for the third hour was 43.5km/h. There was a photo finish required for the intermediate sprint with Delage just taking the 20 points ahead of Dumoulin. The usual suspects jumped ahead of the peloton the race for sixth place points in Montagnac and Cavendish beat Rojas and Gilbert 1’00” behind the escapees. The advantage grew to 1’40” with 40km to go.

Setting Up A Sprint...
With 30km to go, the HTC team retreated momentarily from it’s position at the front of the peloton and Saxo Bank-SunGard rode in the wind for a couple of kilometers. Then HTC rode back into the lead with Bak doing the most work, 1’15” behind the escapees. With 22.5km to go, Ignatiev launched an attack from the front group. Terpstra chased him down after a one-kilometer chase. With 20km to go they were 18” ahead of the other three and 55” ahead of the peloton. Delage, Dumoulin and Delaplace were caught 16km from the line when Ignatiev and Terpstra had an advantage of 40”. Ignatiev sat up and waited for the bunch with 6km to go when Tepstra’s advantage was just 10”. The Dutchman was caught 3km from the line and, immediately after his capture Gilbert (OLO) attacked. He had Roux (FDJ) and Marcato (VCD) with him briefly but they were caught by the bunch 2km from the line.

Cavendish Delivered Again...
In Lavaur, after his third win in the 2011 Tour, Mark Cavendish said there were just two more days that he could win a stage: Montpellier and Paris. His team spent most of the 15th at the front of the peloton and they duly delivered their sprint maestro to a winning position with Renshaw the last lead-out before the race for stage honors truly began. Cavendish pounced at the same time that Oss (LIQ) and Farrar (GRM) began sprinting but the Italian and American were always playing catch up after the work done by Renshaw. ‘Supermanx’ won his fourth stage in a tight sprint ahead of Farrar and Petacchi with Oss rounding out the top four in Montpellier.
Thomas Voeckler finished 71st, with the same time as the stage winner. The Frenchman will wear the yellow jersey in stage 16 after a day of rest in Drôme department.