Tour de France stage 10 results in yet another win for Mark Cavendish

Mark Cavendish of Team Columbia High Road has claimed his seventh stage of the Tour de France and third this year in stage 10 in a bunch sprint.

Cavendish, who has developed a reputation for arrogance and high confidence, took off his green-rimmed sunglasses and polished them as the Briton crossed the line in front of Thor Hushovd, who is his main rival for the green jersey for the best sprinter in the Tour.

“I’m getting closer to it, you know. I like it, I like the colour,” Cavendish said after the race.

American Tyler Farrar of the Garmin Slipstream team finished third, maintaining his slim hopes of pinching the green jersey

The usual breakaway in the 194.5 kilometre stage from Limoges to Issoudun this time totaled four riders including three Frenchmen hoping to deliver a patriotic victory on Bastille Day: Thierry Hupond of the Skil-Shimano team, Benoit Vaugrenard of Française des Jeux and Samuel Dumoulin of team Cofidis, as well as Russian Mikhail Ignatiev of Team Katusha. The Russian did none of the pacemaking in the breakaway, leaving the Frenchmen to toil in building their lead over the peloton.

The stage was always going to be flat enough to allow a sprinter to win it, but the race was made slightly ridiculous by the peloton refusing to make a show of chasing the breakaway during much of the stage in protest at Tour organizers, who had experimented with removing the cyclists’ radio earpieces to communicate with their team managers to make the race less predictable.

The bunch finish meant no changes at all to the general classifications, with Rinaldo Nocentini retaining the yellow jersey, Alberto Contador second and Lance Armstrong third.