Sprint ace Mark Cavendish blasted to the Columbia-Highroad mens' fortieth win of the season and the team’s fourth victory in six days in the Tour de Suisse on Thursday.
In the 178-kilometre stage from Oberriet to Bad Zurzach, Cavendish once again proved unstoppable in a bunch sprint, outpowering Oscar Freire of Spain for his 13th win of the season.  Cavendish’s first place finish continues a run of victories for Team Columbia-Highroad, which has now netted 40 victories in 2009, more than any other team in professional cycling.

On Thursday alone, the team took two triumphs in one day:  Cavendish’s victory in Switzerland coming alongside a stage win by fellow sprinter Andre Greipel in the Ster-Elektrotoer in Holland.  The squad’s total of 40 victories puts Columbia-Highroad well on track to become the ProTour team with the highest tally of wins in a single season - for the second year running.

In the Tour de Suisse, Columbia-Highroad’s current tally has now reached four in six days, with wins by Bernhard Eisel on stage two, Cavendish on stage three and stage six, and Michael Albasini on stage five.
“It’s getting tougher and tougher to win the stages, because not many teams have won and we really had to work hard to make sure we came through,” Cavendish said.  “However, once again we’ve shown that when it comes to sprints Columbia-Highroad is the best team in the world.”

“There was a second category climb at the beginning of the stage and a headwind for most of the day. It made it a very hard day for me, but it was all worth it.  I came to the Tour of Switzerland because it’s the best way to prepare for the Tour de France for me and because I wanted to do some climbs. So far it’s going very well.”

As for the Tour de France, with so many different riders winning Cavendish agreed that “we’ve got 15 guys who could do the Tour.  The important thing is that all of the riders we take can adapt -  either to work for me in the sprints or to help Kim Kirchen, for example, in the battle for the overall.”