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Cavendish takes 28th stage win at Tour de France

Xinhua, July 5, 2016 Adjust font size:

British cyclist Mark Cavendish narrowly pipped Andre Greipel in photo finish to claim his 28th stage win at the Tour de France as he clocked five hours, 59 minutes and 54 seconds to cover the 223.5km ride from Granville to Angers on Monday.

A total of 198 riders started the third stage, as Frenchman Armindo Fonseca originally led following an early breakaway before being caught by Thomas Voeckler with 90km to go.

Cavendish, who was well positioned by his teammates, managed to live up to the expectations and won the stage.

The Dimension Data rider is now six victories behind five-time race winner Eddy Merckx and tied Bernard Hinault to move second on list of all-time Tour stage winners.

"I'm super happy with that win," said Cavendish.

"I wanted to be behind Greipel," the 31-year-old added. "Like me last year, after I didn't win the first stage I was hitting out too early and I knew Andre would do the same. I knew he would hit out."

Peter Sagan finished fourth behind Cavendish, Greipel and Bryan Coquard to retain his place as general classification leader ahead of Julian Alaphilippe and Alejandro Valverde.

The third stage represented the second of seven flat stages in this year's race and stage four on Tuesday is also mainly flat and provides the longest test of the entire Tour, encompassing 237.5 km from Saumur down to Limoges. Endit