If only the Tour de France were a series of sprints,Britains Mark Cavendish would be running away with it. Cavendish sprinted to another stage victory on Wednesday his fourth of this Tour and eighth of his career- with another huge push in the final two miles of Stage 11,almost a carbon copy of his victory in Tuesdays stage. Cavendish,24,was again swarmed by his Team Columbia team mates at the finish,but remains far out of overall contention in 134th place. Biding time Again,however,the leaders saw no change in the top part of the standings as they finished with the peloton. The overall leader,Rinaldo Nocentini of Italy,retained the yellow jersey for the fourth straight stage,still six seconds ahead of Alberto Contador and eight ahead of Lance Armstrong,both of Astana. They appear to be biding their time for the next mountain stage on Friday. The 11th stage traced a moderately hilly path that stretched 192 kilometers from Vatan to Saint-Fargeau,France. The riders got their radios back after the Tour banned them for Tuesdays stage,which ended up being a slow,relatively uninteresting day that even Tour officials complained about. The next radio-free day is scheduled for Friday,which should also be the next dramatic climbing stage that could shake up the leaderboard. Armstrong,however,has said he believes the Tour will drop that plan and allow radios on Friday. Wednesdays escape group in this stage was small. Two riders,Johan van Summeren of Belgium and Marcin Sapa of Poland,broke ahead early in the stage and rode much of the day only a few minutes ahead of the peloton,. The gap was never larger than four minutes 45 seconds and the pack hardly worried about them. Their lead shrunk steadily and left them vulnerable to a charge by the peloton at the end. Stage 10 ended much the same way,with a small escape group swallowed in the final mile by the frantic mass finish,with Cavendish grabbing his third stage victory with a victorious sprint. This time,the sprint was engineered again by Cavendishs Team Columbia,which clustered at the front of the peloton with four kilometers,or about two and a half miles,to go. Cavendish outraced the American Tyler Farrar,who rides for Garmin-Slipstream,to the finish line and won by barely a bike length.
