Stage 15

The road

At the start

Out of the Pyrenees to Montpellier

Jelle Vanendert won the first professional race of his life on Plateau de Beille, and Thomas Voeckler answered every attack Andy Schleck threw at him and kept the jersey: 1:49 on Fränk Schleck, 2:06 on Cadel Evans, 2:15 on Andy. Today the race drops out of the mountains and runs east to Montpellier across flat, hot roads, with a rest day tomorrow. Cavendish has three stages and green, and wants a fourth.

How it was won

1. 146 km to go

   Montagnac

   Delage narrowly edges Dumoulin for the sprint up front. A couple of minutes later HTC run Cavendish down the right-hand barriers and he holds off Rojas and Gilbert for sixth — thirty-seven points clear in green, with a rest day to enjoy it.

2. 2At the line

   Cavendish's fourth

   Terpstra hangs on alone until three kilometres out, Gilbert attacks and is reeled in before the two-kilometre banner, and then a technical run into Montpellier belongs entirely to the HTC train. Cavendish opens at two hundred metres and Farrar, surging from third wheel, cannot come round.

The result