Stage 21 - Paris

Columbia-HTC's Mark Cavendish and teammate Mark Renshaw blasted to first and second place in the final stage of the Tour de France in Paris on Sunday.  Cavendish and Renshaw broke away from the head of the pack on the final corner, with Cavendish celebrating his sixth stage victory and first ever finish in the Tour de France.



The Columbia-HTC rider's victory came on the Champs Elysées in the heart of the French capital, on a finishing circuit for the Tour's final stage which is often classified as the sprinters' World Championships.  "Winning here in Paris is one of the most spectacular moments any sprinter can have," Cavendish said afterwards.  "But it's one thing to do that sprint and another thing to execute it, and I'm always put in the best position possible by my team.  I've got the most talented group of individuals I could ask for helping me to do that. It takes a lot of special people to make sure everything is done perfectly and that's what the guys do.  I always said with that pressure on me, there's no excuse for not winning so I have to do it."



Cavendish has now netted stages two, three, ten, 11, 19  and 21 of the Tour de France this year. Sunday's first place is the 19th victory of his season and the tenth Tour stage  of his career.

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I  said before I came the Tour de France that I wanted the stage win and a finish and anything else would be a bonus.  Having taken six wins and finished in Paris as well, I can't go away from this Tour disappointed with what I've achieved."

Following Cavendish's latest win, Columbia-HTC Men's Team has now taken 61 victories this season, the highest tally for any professional team.

Stage 19 - Bourgoin Jallieu to Aubenas 

Mark Cavendish charged to his fifth stage win for Columbia-HTC in the 2009 Tour de France on Friday.  Cavendish's victory is the ninth of his career in the Tour, making the 24-year-old Columbia-HTC pro the British rider with the highest number of stages wins ever in the race. 



Already the winner of stages two, three, 10 and 11 in this year's Tour, the star sprinter was the fastest of a peloton which had split apart on the final Cote de L'Escrinet climb close to the finish at Aubenas. Second was Thor Hushovd of Norway and third Germany's Gerald Ciolek.



 "I'm really, really happy.  It was a beautiful, beautiful win," Cavendish said afterwards.  "We really didn't have this stage put down as one that would end in a bunch sprint, but we came through all the same.  At the team meeting I told the guys that if we got to the climb all together and I could hang on, then I would do my absolute best to win.  Half the team supported me all the way to the climb and half the team were there with me on the descent that followed and through to the finish. They were amazing, particularly if you consider that Saturday's a really hard mountain stage.  [Columbia-HTC teammate] Tony Martin led me out perfectly, even though it was a very tough uphill finish, but I did it." 



Cavendish is now just two days away from completing the Tour de France for the first time in his career, and he aims to round off the race with a final stage win on the Champs Elysées on Sunday.

Stage 11 - Vatan to Saint Fargeau

Columbia-HTC's Mark Cavendish has powered to a fourth stage win in the 2009 Tour de France on Wednesday, a victory that has allowed the British rider to regain the overall lead in the points jersey competition.  The win marks the 24-year-old's eighth career Tour stage win.

Already the winner of stages two, three and 10, on stage 11's 192 kilometre ride from Vatan to Saint-Fargeau Cavendish was perfectly lead out by teammates George Hincapie, Tony Martin, and Mark Renshaw. The Columbia-HTC sprinter finished almost a bike length ahead of American Tyler Farrar and Yauheni Hutarovitch of Bylorussia to claim his 17th win of the season.

"There's nothing better than a win. You can talk and plan at the dinner table but success is the biggest motivation,"  Cavendish said.  "We all know that if we do our job 100-percent right it'll come out right.  It's a cliche but in our team it really is 'all for one and one for all.'"

"There was a bit of an uphill at the finish but it wasn't very long.  I went for the line with 150 metres to go, not 200 metres to go, and I knew some guys would try to come back at me on the final but that was the only real difference it made."

Cavendish thanked his team for having put him in a strong position to take his second straight victory in two days.  "It's amazing to have guys like Tony Martin working for you, when you think he's leading the Best Young Rider's competition and has a top-ten place overall. That shows just how dedicated and professional they are and I can't thank them enough."

Back in green as the leader of the points classification, Cavendish said "it would be nice to hold onto this all the way through, but it doesn't change my gameplan."
"My big aim is still to reach Paris and win on the Champs Elysées."

Stage Ten - Limoges to Issoudun

Mark Cavendish has stormed to a third stage win in the 2009 Tour de France for Columbia-HTC on Tuesday.  Already victorious on stages two and three, Cavendish outpowered Norway's Thor Hushovd and American Tyler Farrar to clinch the 194.5-kilometre stage from Limoges to Issoudun by over two bike lengths.

The Columbia-HTC rider was perfectly led out by his teammates in the tricky final kilometres with Mark Renshaw bringing him up to speed before powering ahead for a clear win.  "[Team-mate] Mark Renshaw for me is the man of the day," Cavendish said afterwards.  "It was a technical finish, slightly uphill and very twisty, but Mark did a great job for me taking me through those last corners. Really all I had to do was finish off his work.  It's an important victory for me.  I wanted to prove today that I didn't come through the Pyrenees for nothing, and the team rode brilliantly for me again. They delivered me perfectly to the finish and I was able to deliver."

Cavendish rubbed his green sunglasses when crossing the line, a reference to his continuing battle for the points competition, which he led in the first week.
"It's a nice colour, maybe I'll get to wear more green before the end of the race again. I'll certainly try my best to get the green jersey back."

The winner of four stages last year, Cavendish calculates that "There are four more opportunities for bunch sprints, three more this week, and I'll keep on going for the wins.  My big objective is to win on the Champs Elysées in Paris on the last day."

The 24-year-old British rider's latest victory was his sixteenth win of the season and the seventh Tour de France stage of his career.  Columbia-HTC men's team have now racked up 57 wins this season, and remain the professional cycling team with most victories in 2009.

Stage Three - Marseilles to La Grand Motte

Columbia-HTC's Mark Cavendish soared to his second straight win in the Tour de France on Monday,  strengthening his overall hold on the green jersey.  In a small bunch sprint finish, Cavendish was once again the fastest in the 196.5-kilometre stage from Marseilles to La Grande Motte.

Cavendish's victory was the sixth Tour stage win and 43rd victory of his career, and came after 27 riders, including the entire Columbia-HTC team, broke away from the peloton around 30 kilometres to go.  The 24-year-old rider made a gesture of using a mobile phone as he crossed the line, and he explained that it was in honor of his team's new sponsor, HTC.

"This gesture was dedicated to HTC because they [introduced] a new phone last week and I said if I win I'd do that for them," Cavendish explained. "There are eight sprint stages we have targeted here, so hopefully I'll get a few more before the end of the Tour, and one of them will be a win on the Champs Elysées."

Speaking of the Columbia-HTC squad's coordinated teamwork, he expleined, "It was brilliant. We were the only sprint team that wanted to ride today in the front group, but it worked out and the other teams had to ride behind anyway to chase us.  You could really appreciate how strong we were as a squad and we took a lot of time out of the guys behind.  It was a hard last kilometre, but I had five guys around me in the last build-up for the sprint.  Mark [Renshaw] kept his cool and left it very late because there was a headwind but it worked out well."

"It doesn't matter who you are, if you work hard you're going to succeed, and if you've got a team like Columbia-HTC that are able to ride for you and they are such a great mix of the best young talented riders in the world and the best older experienced riders in the world, then it's a real winning formula. When we all work together it's bound to work out."

The Columbia-HTC mass attack also allowed Tony Martin to move into the lead of the Best Young Rider's classification.

Cavendish completed a hat trick of victories for Columbia-HTC on Monday after Switzerland's Michael Albasini won stage two and moved into the overall lead of the Tour of Austria, and Mara Abbott of the USA scooped first place in stage three of the Giro d'Italia Femminile.

Stage Two - Monaco to Brignoles

Mark Cavendish has blasted to his first victory of the 2009 Tour de France on Sunday's 187-kilometre stage from Monaco to Brignoles, a victory that also places him in the green jersey as the leader of the race's points classification.

The Columbia-HTC rider took his fourteenth win of the 2009 season with a powerful charge for the finish line that left him clearly ahead of runners-up Tyler Farrar of the United States and Roman Feillu of France.  Cavendish now heads the Tour's points classification and for the first time in his career.  On Monday's stage three, he will wear the green jersey as leader of that competition in the Tour de France.

Afterwards Cavendish hugged and thanked his Columbia-HTC teammates for having given him such strong support during the stage.  "The team were superb, they're all great riders and I'm just glad I can win at the end of everything they do for me," he said.  "There were a lot of squads trying to get past us.  They were all very keen  to get a result, but we kept going and kept going and when we do that there's only ever going to be one result.  I was able to go all out and get the win. It was perfect for us, and it's perfect to be able to do that after such hard work by my teammates. It's a very special result and now I've got the green jersey, I couldn't be more satisfied."

"I have two goals here. My personal goal is to finish the Tour, and my job, my second goal, is to win stages.  I don't think it's wise to go for the green jersey right from the start, so now I've won one stage I want to go all the way to Paris and see if I can win some more and maybe take a last win on the Champs Elysées."

Cavendish's fifth Tour de France stage win of his career takes the total of wins for Columbia-HTC men's team to 51, and comes a few hours after his teammate Andre Greipel won the opening stage of the Tour of Austria.