Greipel beats Cavendish to take Ster ZLM Toer stage two
Mark Cavendish (Sky) suffered a rare second successive defeat in bunch sprints at the Ster ZLM Toer in Holland, as Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) out-paced the Brit to win on Friday.
On Thursday, Greipel's German compatriot Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) come in to win ahead of Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) in second and Cavendish in third.
Consistency pays, though, and Cavendish now moves into the overall lead in the race ahead of Renshaw and Greipel with two stages remaining.
Greipel, Cavendish and Renshaw will all clash in bunch sprints at the Tour de France later this month. Cavendish and Greipel are two of the favourites for the subsequent Olympic Games road race on July 28.
The four-day, UCI 2.1-ranked Ster ZLM Toer concludes on Sunday, June 17.
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JD
June 15 17:24
Cavendish looks about 15 percent below his supernatural best, hence the lower placings. Has Giro fatigue and Olympics training lost him the edge or is he warming up?
yen
June 15 18:26
Is the big MC losing it - IF he gets beat by Sagan... in the 'tour, then he will be !
scott taylor
June 16 10:57
Sure he will be bang on the money in July.
KG
June 16 12:13
I'd say he's just getting warmed up! If he had any concerns himself I'm fairly certain we'd no about it!