• Tour of Britain, Stage Three

Cavendish coasts to Dumfries win

ESPN staff
September 11, 2012
Mark Cavendish coasted to victory in Dumfries for the second year in succession © PA Photos
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Mark Cavendish made it third time lucky with victory on Stage Three of the Tour of Britain in Dumfries.

Having spectacularly crashed out of Sunday's opening stage before suffering a rare sprint finish defeat at the hands of Leigh Howard on Monday, the world champion surged to a comfortable win in the Scottish town for the second year running, courtesy of a well-worked lead-out by Team Sky team-mates Luke Rowe and Bernhard Eisel.

Australia's Howard finished a distant second, but did enough to inherit the general classification lead from Boy van Poppel.

A five-man group broke clear 22km into the race from Jedburgh, and built up a four-minute lead before the UnitedHealthcare team drew the peloton back to within 1min 20sec as the race entered the 30.5km final circuit of Dumfries.

Kristian House, Peter Williams and Bernard Sulzberger were caught with 22km to go, with Peter Hawkins reeled in soon after as Wesley Kreder held on to the lead.

Sep Vanmarcke staged a solo chase to join Kreder at the front, but the duo were caught with 2.5km to go as Team Sky marshalled the chase group before setting up Cavendish to coast to victory.

The race returns to England for Stage Four, which runs from Carlisle to Blackpool.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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