Sprint King Mark Cavendish Targets Green Jersey at the Tour de France
Last updated 6/26/2011 11:30:32 AM
Sprint King Mark Cavendish Targets Green Jersey at the Tour de France 2011
The Isle of Man's Mark Cavendish goes into the Tour de France targeting the sprinters green jersey.
The king of the sprinters missed out by just 11 points last year but believes his preparations have been ideal, even though he failed to register a win on the recent Tour of Switzerland.
"I'm lean." He said, "I've not had any problems and I came off the Tour of Switzerland in good form.
"It makes me pretty excited.
"I am going for the green jersey and I have gone for it the last two years."
Cavendish's tactics in previous Tours has been to try to win all the sprint stages, while not worrying too much about the intermediate sprints.
But new rules have been introduced, which means there are fewer intermediate sprints, and that they are worth more points.
Cavendish said: "Before, I didn't have to go for the intermediate sprints and if you win the stage you minimise your losses anyway.
"Now I'll have to go for them but still just to minimise my losses. It still won't take away from the fact that I want to win stages. My way to win the green jersey always has been and always will be to win as many stages as possible and just to eliminate my losses on the intermediates.
"Obviously, with points available for the first 15 riders across the line, I'll have to go for them, but it's whether it not necessarily means you have to pull back the brake to get maximum points, because it's just to limit your losses on the other sprinters that are around."
Cavendish praised the efforts of his HTC-Highroad team-mates, saying: "I've got a pretty good race head. I can see spaces, I can make decisions, but there are two people in cycling whose decision I'd take over mine and that's Mark Renshaw and George Hincapie.
"The mental pressure of being there and having to think and concentrate to stay at the front is massive and that takes such a lot of energy away.
"That's the thing about Mark, he just takes so much mental stress off me because all I have to do is concentrate on following him. It just saves so much energy that allows me to go better at the finish.
"It's easy to think the whole team is built around one person. It's not. We're just a group of guys that love racing."