Cavendish equals Merckx as dream Tour comeback now unstoppable | Video | Sticky Bottle

*Mark Cavendish has won today's stage at the Tour de France, his fourth in this year's race and the 34th of his career*

Mark Cavendish has won today's stage at the Tour de France, taking his tally on this year's race to four and his career tally to 34.

And that means the British rider has now equaled the all-time Tour de France stage win record of Eddy Merckx.

Today's stage 13, some 219.8km from Nîmes to Carcassonne, was marked by a messy finale when the crosswinds saw a battle at the head of the bunch to hold position.

However, when the peloton hit the 1km to go marker Cavendish's Deceuninck-QuickStep team had plenty of men on the front leading him out.

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His final lead-out man, Michael Mørkøv put in such a good effort that he almost won the stage. Cavendish just pipped him on the line, as Mørkøv looked around to see if his British team mate was going to pass him on the slightly uphill finish.

And just on the line the points classification leader got his nose ahead and took the stage, with Mørkøv in 2nd place and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Fenix) 3rd.

The lead-out almost came apart when the second last man for Deceuninck-QuickStep, Davide Ballerini, went so hard on the front that he opened a gap on those behind. But Mørkøv, who could have won the stage had he not hesitated just before the line, and Cavendish managed to overcome those issues to take a 1-2 for the team after combining so well once again.

More to come.