Cavendish beats McEwen at De Panne
- By VeloNews.com
- Published Apr. 1, 2009
- Updated Apr. 1, 2009 at 1:02 PM UTC
Mark Cavendish (Columbia-Highroad) bolted to a sprint victory Wednesday in the second stage of the Three Days of De Panne in Belgium.
The recently crowned Milan-San Remo champ beat back Robbie McEwen (Katusha) and Italian Francesco Chicchi (Liquigas) in the 219km start into Coxyde.
“It was a long day for the team, who worked very hard. I’d have liked to help one of my teammates win it — but with McEwen in my slipstream that wasn’t possible. I had to sprint myself to win it,” Cavendish said.
Overnight leader Filippo Pozzato (Katusha) finished safely in the pack, ahead of second-place rider Frederick Willems to retain the overall lead. Pozzato won Tuesday’s opener in a two-man breakaway with Willems to snag the leader’s jersey.
Three men escaped in the opening 30km, but were duly reeled in with 10km to go to set up the mass sprint. The stage tackled the Kemmelberg climb with about 50km to go and Columbia-Highroad set up its train to control the pack in the final drive to the line.
The final sprint was mano-a-mano between McEwen and Cavendish and the young Manxster came up big against the rider that most agree Cavendish resembles most.
McEwen tried to come off Cavendish’s wheel, but waited too long and had to settle for second. Chicchi came across the line third.
“I found my way in the last km’s and got the wheel of Cavendish,” McEwen said. “We started the sprint at the same time, 200 meters to go. I made up the bike length difference but Cavendish took it back in the last 50 meters. I felt that I made a mistake by not going earlier to take him by surprise.”
It’s the seventh win of the year for Cavendish, who’s living up to his stated goal of trying to win a stage in every stage race he starts in 2009.
The Three Days of De Panne concludes Thursday with a split stage. In the morning, the riders contest a 112km road stage before a decisive afternoon time trial of 14km.