Cavendish wins his 29th stage in Tour de France
Cavendish has had a bit of a resurgence, winning the first two sprint stages, but in none of the sprints, Kittel has had an ideal opportunity to sprint.
Today the two giants had their fourth chance to sprint in the final flat stage of a hectic first week and this time it came down to a battle on pure speed. When it all came down to the expected bunch kick, Kittel launched his sprint from afar and Cavendish immediately tried to come around. Unlike in most of their previous battles, the Brit turned out to be the best as he took his third victory in impressive fashion.
The sprint came at the end of a relatively uneventful day where a small two-rider break had spent some time in the spotlight. They were brought back with 21km to go and then it was the usual waiting game for the sprint trains.
Greg Van Avermaet finished safely and so retained the lead and his advantage of 5.11 over Julian Alaphilippe. He faces his first big test as race leader in stage 7 which is the first one in the Pyrenees. The first 100km ae almost completely flat and then a small category 4 climb serves as a warm-up. Then a short flat section leads to the famous Col d’Aspin which averages 6.5% over 12km. The top is located just 7km from the finish and then it’s a short descent and 1.5km of light uphill in the finale.
Tour de France 2016 – stage 6 results (Arpajon-sur-Cère – Montauban):
| 1 | Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) |
4:43:48 |
| 2 | Marcel Kittel (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
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| 3 | Daniel Mclay (Fortuneo – Vital Concept) |
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| 4 | Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) |
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| 5 | Christophe Laporte (Cofidis) |
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| 6 | Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) |
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| 7 | Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNl-Jumbo) |
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| 8 | Edward Theuns (Trek-Segafredo) |
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| 9 | Bryan Coquard (Direct Energie) |
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| 10 | Shane Archbold (Bora-Argon 18) |
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General classification after stage 6:
| 1 | Greg Van Avermaet (BMC) |
30:18:39 |
| 2 | Julian Alaphilippe (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
+05’11” |
| 3 | Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) |
+05’13” |
| 4 | Christopher Froome (Sky) |
+05’17” |
| 5 | Warren Barguil (Giant-Alpecin) |
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| 6 | Nairo Quintana (Movistar) |
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| 7 | Pierre Rolland (Cannondale-Drapac) |
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| 8 | Fabio Aru (Astana) |
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| 9 | Daniel Martin (Etixx – Quick-Step) |
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| 10 | Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) |
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