Cavendish warning to rivals after sprint finish

Mark Cavendish claimed his 24th Tour de France stage victory on the seafront in Marseille yesterday.

It was a much-needed win for Cavendish, who had been affected by an illness he did his best to conceal in the opening days of the Tour, keeping quiet in the hope he could get over it before any of his rivals realised he was suffering.

They probably got the idea from the way he was dropped in the Corsican mountains, but he looked back to his imperious best as he took advantage of a brilliant lead-out from his Omega Pharma-Quick Step team-mates.

Two significant crashes in the last 16 kilometres of yesterday’s 228.5km stage five from Cagnes-sur-Mer highlighted the dangers facing the general classification contenders, with a premium put on survival.

Although outright favourite Chris Froome’s chief lieutenant Richie Porte had a puncture — not costing him any time — Froome dodged the trouble around him — despite its unpredictability.

“For now our game plan is to try to stay in front of the problems, though it seems most of the problems are happening at the front,” he said.

“You definitely have to stay awake at all times. I managed to get round [the final crash, 200m from the line].”

There was no change in the overall standings with Orica GreenEDGE rider Simon Gerrans retaining the yellow jersey.

His team-mates Daryl Impey and Michael Albasini are on the same time, with Michal Kwiatkowski and Sylvain Chavanel of Omega Pharma-Quick Step fourth and fifth.

Irish riders Nicolas Roche (Team Saxo-Tinkoff) and Dan Martin (Garmin-SHARP) had a relatively stress-free day yesterday, both coming over the line in the main bunch, thus not losing any time on general classification.

Roche was 25th on the stage and stays ninth overall, just nine seconds down on the leader, while Martin was further back in 104th after getting held up in the crash on the run-in to the finish.

He did jump up two places to 17th, however, and is now 17 seconds down overall on Gerrans.

Today’s 176km stage from Aix-en-Provence to Montpellier is one of the flattest of this year’s race and barely has a rise in the road.

However, riders must be vigilant as strong crosswinds are prevalent in the area and have caused splits in the past.