Britain's Mark Cavendish has claimed a second successive stage win of the Tour de France after beating Thor Hushvod to the line at the end of the 196 kilometre third stage from Marseille to La Grande-Motte.
Cavendish, the young Manxman, once again benefitted from some well-organised riding from his Columbia-HTC team-mates and, specifically, Mark Renshaw, his Australian lead-out man.
Just as in Sunday's second stage, Columbia took charge at the head of the peloton after a small breakaway had been reeled in, and appeared to be doing most of the work as other teams, no doubt, had their minds on Tuesday's return of the team time-trial.
The Briton, who has targeted the points classification in only his third year as a professional rider, will continue Britain's dominance of the much-coveted green jersey in this year's Tour after Bradley Wiggins, Garmin-Slipstream's British sprint-specialist, was the first owner of the jersey following the opening stage, the 15.5km individual time-trial in Monaco.
On what was expected to be a relatively incident free day Lance Armstrong, the seven-time winner riding for the Astana team, showed his true colours as he appeared to dictate instructions to his team-mates after Alberto Contador, his supposed team leader, dropped off the pace.
Fabian Cancellara, the Swiss Saxo Bank rider, extended his overall lead to 33secs as he retained the yellow jersey and will wear it for a third successive day on Tuesday's 39km team time-trial Montpellier.
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