Tour de France: Mark Cavendish sprints to victory on stage seven

Mark Cavendish ended his two-year wait for a 26th Tour de France win by sprinting to victory on stage seven as Chris Froome reclaimed the race leader’s yellow jersey.

Cavendish (Etixx – Quick-Step), whose last Tour win came on stage 13 of the 2013 edition, produced a perfectly timed burst in Fougeres to win by a bike length from Andre Greipel (Lotto Soudal) in second and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo) in third.

Cavendish is now out on his own in third place on the all-time list of Tour stage wins, eight adrift of Eddy Merckx's record of 34 and just two away from Bernard Hinault's total of 28.

Froome (Team Sky) finished in the peloton to officially return to the top of the general classification after previous leader Tony Martin did not start the stage following his collarbone fracture in a crash on stage six.

Bonus seconds saw Sagan climb to second overall, 11 seconds back, while Tejay van Garderen (BMC Racing) is 13 seconds down in third.

Cavendish said: “I wanted to come from behind. I saw [Alexander] Kristoff had two guys left and I manoeuvered on to him and I waited, but just as I was about to go, Andre came and I thought that was it. I had to back off, got past Kristoff and I just got through. I was shoulder to shoulder with Sagan. I just wanted it so bad."

Stage seven took the riders into Brittany on a 190.5km route and, unlike previous days, there were no major incidents as the peloton enjoyed the calmest stage of the race so far.

Tension rose in the final 10km as the sprint teams began assembling their trains and it was Greipel’s Lotto Soudal who led the bunch into the final 1km.

Cavendish looked too far back initially, but when Katusha took up pace-setting, he latched on to the back of their train with a deft piece of positioning.

Greipel then overtook him by launching his sprint around 200m out, but Cavendish responded immediately and managed to squeeze through the smallest of gaps to claim a comfortable win.

Froome and the rest of his rivals for overall victory all followed in the peloton, meaning he remains 36 seconds ahead of eighth-placed Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo), 1min 38sec in front of 12th-placed Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) and 1min 56sec up on 16th-placed Nairo Quintana (Movistar).

The Tour continues on Saturday with a 181.5km rolling eighth stage from Rennes to the Mur-de-Bretagne. Follow it with our live blog and find out more about the route in our race guide.

Stage seven result

1 Mark Cavendish (GB) Etixx – Quick-Step, 4:27:25

2 Andre Greipel (Ger) Lotto Soudal, same time

3 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff-Saxo, st

4 John Degenkolb (Ger) Giant-Alpecin, st

5 Alexander Kristoff (Nor) Katusha, st

6 Arnaud Demare (Fra) FDJ.fr, st

7 Tyler Farrar (USA) MTN-Qhubeka, st

8 Reinardt Janse van Rensburg (RSA) MTN-Qhubeka, st

9 Davide Cimolai (Ita) Lampre-Merida, st

10 Sam Bennett (Irl) Bora-Argon 18, st

General classification

1  Chris Froome (GB) Team Sky, 26:40:51

2 Peter Sagan (Svk) Tinkoff-Saxo, +11secs

3 Tejay van Garderen (USA) BMC Racing, +13

4 Tony Gallopin (Fra) Lotto Soudal, +26

5 Greg van Avermaet (Bel) BMC Racing, +28

6 Rigoberto Uran (Col) Etixx – Quick-Step, +34

7 Alberto Contador (Esp) Tinkoff-Saxo, +36

8 Zdenek Stybar (Cze) Etixx – Quick-Step, +52

9 Geraint Thomas (GB) Team Sky, +1:03 

10 Warren Barguil (Fra) Giant-Alpecin, +1:07