Cavendish Wins His Second Pro Race for 2007

 

Story posted May 10
T-Mobile press release (www.t-mobile-team.com)

 

 

 

The T-Mobile sprinter faction are on fire in north eastern France. The Isle of Man's Mark Cavendish, out-sprinted an elite pack to win stage 3 of the '4 Jours de Dunkerque' on Thursday, with his fellow British T-Mobile team-mate Roger Hammond placing third. On the back of Cavendish's third place a day earlier, the 21-year-old Manx speedster's latest coup sees him lead the Points competition at the six-day race.

 

After missing out on the bunch sprint Wednesday, T-Mobile controlled today's 185 km trek from St.Amand-les-Eaux to Caudry, working hard to reel in the day's classic breakaway, keep the peloton together in the final kilometres and then deliver Cavendish to the front - the Manxman again showed he has the top-end speed to do the rest.

 

“This is a fantastic result for the team and we really deserved it," said T-Mobile sporting director Brian Holm. Cavendish is unbelievable, a really mean little devil. I first saw him in action when he took fourth in Blackpool at the Tour of Britain two years ago as a young lad. I knew then he had it. His big breakthrough win at Scheldeprijs last month was one of the most spectacular I have ever seen in this sport," he added.

 

"It was unbelievable to see such a young guy flying past riders like Robbie McEwen”.

 

"Unibet moved to the front with about 1200 m to go, then I took over going into a roundabout 600 m from the line," said Roger Hammond describing the finale. "Mark was right on my wheel, and I kicked really hard coming out of the roundabout. With 250m to go, I was slowing and needed to drop off. That's was still a long way out for Mark to sprint, but when I turned around I saw that we had burned off the rest. It was incredible and Mark was able to do the rest from there."

 

The race continues tomorrow with three more stages culminating on the 13th of May.