Mark Cavendish beats Marcel Kittel for his third stage win on day 6 of the Tour de France.
Any suggestion Mark Cavendish was over the hill and only able to beat younger emerging sprinters now and again has been well and truly shot down by the Manxman.
He sprinted in for his third Tour de France stage win of the race at the end of 190.5km from Arpajon-sur-Cère to Montauban.
Cavendish overhauled Kittel in the furious dash to the line to take his career Tour stage win tally to 29.
He now moves into 2nd place in the all time stage winners list, having drawn level with Bernard Hinault’s 28 wins on winning Monday's third stage.
Cavendish in the three-year period from 2009 to 2011 won 16 stages of the Tour.
That was followed by three in 2012, two in 2013, none in 2014 when he pulled out before stage 2 and just one last year.
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But now having been reunited with lead-out man Mark Renshaw at Dimension Data and having been preparing on the track for the Rio Olympics he has clearly found his really fast legs again.
And three wins from the six stages is a hit rate that brings him right back to his glory days at the still tender enough age of 31 years.
Dan Martin (Etixx-QuickStep) was 33rd today and remains 10th overall still 5:17 behind race leader Greg Van Avermaet riding for BMC.
Sam Bennett (Bora-Argon 18) was last man home today but this time was only 6:26 down, though is still nursing nasty crash injuries from his stage 1 bunch sprint crash.
The Carrick-on-Suir man's team mate and usual lead out man Shane Archbold took 10th place on the stage; a great result for the Kiwi in his first Tour.
Final kilometre
Stage 6: Arpajon-sur-Cère to Montauban (190.5km)
1 Mark Cavendish (GBr) Dimension Data 4:43:48
2 Marcel Kittel (Ger) Etixx - Quick-Step
3 Daniel Mclay (GBr) Fortuneo - Vital Concept
4 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Team Katusha
5 Christophe Laporte (Fra) Cofidis, Solutions Credits
6 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff Team
7 Dylan Groenewegen (Ned) Team LottoNl-Jumbo
8 Edward Theuns (Bel) Trek-Segafredo
9 Bryan Coquard (Fra) Direct Energie
10 Shane Archbold (NZl) Bora-Argon 18
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