Having crashed and lost out to team mate Luke Rowe on the first day of the Tour of Britain and been beaten to the line by GreenEDGE’s Leigh Howard on the second, Mark Cavendish finally had his moment on today’s ToB stage (161.4km Jedburgh to Dumfries) winning in a time of 3:54:30. In a near-perfect set up from Team Sky, with Bradley Wiggins and Jeremy Hunt working tirelessly to rein in the breakaway in the final kilometres, Cav did what he does best and sprinted to victory.
Speaking post-race he said, ‘I’m delighted. We tried a few different things yesterday which didn’t quite work out, so (Sports Director) Servais Knaven told us to keep things simple today and go for the sprint… We always had those breakaway riders in our sights. Christian, Brad and Jez all did massive pulls and were able to line it out and bring everything back together at just the right time. It was great for me to be able to sit on the wheel while they were doing all the work.’
Leigh Howard (Orica-GreenEDGE) maintains overall lead going into tomorrow’s 156km Stage 4, Carlisle to Blackpool.