Читать книгу Etape. The untold stories of the Tour de France’s defining stages онлайн

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Ballan and Lefèvre persevere – they have thirteen seconds’ advantage going over the top – but Cavendish is still there. ‘I recovered in about 300 metres of the descent, and went straight back to the front. I can descend better than the others, and the peloton was small.’

Monfort, George Hincapie and Tony Martin now mass at the front, Cavendish behind them. They reel in Sánchez, while Ballan and Lefèvre hang on. They tear down the descent. Cavendish takes one last drink before, with 2.2km remaining, and a little uphill kick, they catch the last two escapees.

‘It was wet on the descent,’ says Cavendish. ‘It had been a dry day, but it was wet – that was strange. I didn’t understand that. We could see the two guys up the road, behind the motorbikes – again. Maxime was riding. Tony was riding. And Milram were riding for Ciolek.

‘And we caught them with a couple of ks to go. George was still there for me, and he went first. Then Tony.’ Cavendish screws up his face as he recalls the effort made by Martin. ‘Tony did, uphill, about a 1,600m lead out. And it was uphill; he was slowing down, slowing down, but hanging on at the front. I knew it was a kind of uphill finish; but it still looked like a sprint. You could see the finish. It was coming. I just whacked it in my 14[-tooth sprocket: a relatively low gear for a sprint]. Because Tony was slowing, slowing, slowing. So it was your acceleration that was the most important part of the sprint.’