The Manxman had a good start to the tour winning the team time-trial, but he went through a brief barren patch during the first week. He took his first victory back in stage 12 and he’s won every sprint since then. The 25-year-old has extended his lead in the green jersey competition and it looks likely that he will wear it in Madrid.
It has been a good day for the HTC Columbia team who took a sprint victory in the guise of Andre Greipel in stage five of the Tour of Britain.
Despite losing the red jersey in yesterday’s time-trial Joaquin Rodriguez has managed to put himself in to second place in that classification. Tyler Farrar has been pushed down to third place one point behind the Spaniard.
Early Break
Today’s flat stage was a nice respite for the riders after the tough mountain stages of the past week. The tour headed from the town of Valladolid and made its way through the countryside of northern Spain towards the historical city of Salamanca.
An eight-man breakaway formed almost immediately and they were allowed to build a gap easily. However, the gap never grew over three minutes; the flat roads making it just the little bit too difficult.
Most of the breakaway riders were caught with 10km to go, but a group of three attempted to stay out. Previous red jersey holder Philip Gilbert tried his hand at a solo escape but he only managed to stay out for 5km before he was caught again.
The peloton were all back together with 3km to go and HTC Columbia and Garmin brought their riders to the front. It was Matt Goss however who did the best job and gave Cavendish a good run at the finish line.
Zabriskie, Hushovd and Bos leave
There were three big dropouts even before the stage hit the road; David Zabriskie pulled out due to tiredness despite have a very god time-trial yesterday. Ex-track champion Theo Bos was forced to pull out after a huge accident yesterday. The big Dutch rider crashed with a motorbike parked on the side of the road. He was taken to hospital for precautions, but doctors said he hasn’t broken anything.
Another big blow for Cervelo was the news that Thor Hushovd was going to make the start; pulling out to prepare for the World Championships in a couple of weeks. Cervelo are joining forces with Garmin for next season.
News also came through today that the BBox Bouygues Telecom team would be disbanding at the end of the season. This is good news for the other French teams who have been waiting for the telecoms team to make their decision before the winter transfers to begin.
Tomorrow’s stage is one of the longest at 231,2km and will head from Piedrahita to the walled town of Toledo.
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