BRITAIN'S Mark Cavendish continued to enhance his reputation as cycling's new sprint king with a fourth stage win in the 2008 Tour de France yesterday.
Cavendish emerged to the left of veteran sprinter Robbie McEwen to become only the second British rider to win back-to-back stages in a Grand Tour with victory in stage 13 from Narbonne to Nimes.
The quick run-in to Nimes was again perfect for the
sprinters, and the old guard of Erik Zabel, Thor Hushovd and McEwen once again had no answer to Cavendish's speed in the final 100 metres.
Cadel Evans retained the yellow jersey and has a one-second lead over Frank Schleck from Luxembourg.
Cavendish said: "I was trying that hard, so to get another win was really good. It's a bit impossible to comprehend but now I'd see it as a failure to not carry on winning.
"I only planned to do ten days of the Giro de Paris but finished it and now I'm 13 days into the Tour not feeling too tired – I'll take every day as it comes and see how far I can get."
Cavendish's powers of recovery are renowned, but even he was expected to struggle after the exertions of yesterday when he won another bunch sprint into Narbonne. Once again, Cavendish's route seemed to be blocked, this time by Hushovd and Mark Renshaw of Credit Agricole.
Milram had also given Zabel an ideal benchmark entering the final kilometre, but Cavendish's timing to pop out from behind Hushovd was again impeccable.
The 23-year-old is only the second sprinter in the last ten years to win four stages in the same Tour, the other being Alessandro Petacchi in 2003.
The full article contains 295 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
