Farrar stages Independence Day coup

CYCLING:AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE Day ended with stars in Tyler Farrar's eyes, and stripes on Mark Cavendish's back. As so often happens to a team, having sought a Tour stage win for three years Garmin immediately followed up their first, in the team time trial, with another, this time for their sprinter.

Cavendish, on the other hand, was baulked at the finish where he finished fifth, and was relegated from sixth place in the intermediate sprint after using his head as he and Thor Hushovd fought for position.

In 2009 Farrar was the bridesmaid to Cavendish in the Tour sprints, while in 2010 he broke a wrist but managed a second and third place before pulling out. Here, however, the sprint played out perfectly with Garmin timing their run to the line to perfection, and Hushovd playing a lead role in the final metres.

It is rare to see the yellow jersey leading out a sprint, but the Norwegian and Farrar have agreed who is going for which finishes. Hushovd is suited to the slightly tougher ones, so yesterday he played wingman. Together they made a little piece of history: no US rider had won a Tour stage on July 4th, and Farrar is now the first American to win stages in all three major Tours.

It ended what the Washington rider described as “a horrible last two months”. He quit the Giro d’Italia on stage five after the death of his friend and training partner the Belgian Wouter Weylandt, who fell the previous day and sustained fatal head injuries. He crossed the line with his fingers forming a W in tribute, with resonances of Lance Armstrong’s salute to the sky after his stage win in homage to his dead team-mate Fabio Casartelli in 1995.

While most of the Garmin squad is based in Spain, Farrar opted for Belgium, to become familiar with the roads used for the one-day Classics, and to learn the language rather than talking only with his compatriots. It has clearly worked, as after the finish yesterday he seemed most at ease when talking to Flemish television.

It was a chaotic sprint, with Cavendish’s HTC-Highroad team hitting the front too early. They went missing on a small climb before the two kilometres to go mark, meaning that Cavendish did not get the smooth lead-out that suits him so well. He was swamped by the other sprinters, then got tangled with Romain Feillu of France and Jose-Joaquin Rojas of Spain on the left-hand bend leading into the finish.

“I was off my front wheel round the last corner,” Cavendish said. “I thought I was down at one point but I managed to keep upright. I was 40 metres behind out of the last corner with no speed whatsoever, so I went full gas and regained the 40 metres. I finished with the front four so I stayed in contention for the points.”

There is a pattern here. The Manxman has only once enjoyed a smooth start to the Tour, in 2009, when he took the first two road race stages. He was worried yesterday that people may write him off, but there is no reason to do so. As he said, finishing so much faster than the rest after being baulked means he has form. It is just a matter of the opportunity.

Via his Twitter feed, Cavendish said he had “no idea” why the referees took such a serious view of his brief clash with Hushovd at the intermediate sprint at Saint-Hilaire-de-Chaleons. The speed was high when Hushovd moved off his line and Cavendish responded by using his helmet to shove him out of the way, but it did not look unduly dangerous.

They were relegated to the last places in the bunch, which means Cavendish is now 38 points behind the leader, Rojas, in the green jersey standings. The organisers have changed the format to a single sprint per stage worth almost half a stage win, the idea being to create more intensity, and it seems they are getting what they sought, or perhaps rather too much.

The stars and stripes was not the only flag to take centre stage. The Gwenn-ha-Du, the black and white Breton banner, was prominent once the race had crossed the vast bridge over the Loire estuary at Saint-Nazaire, ranked as a fourth-category hill. There were dozens by the roadsides and a vast one spread out on a raft on the river Vilaine before the finish.

The Tour has not visited the most cycling-mad region of France since 2008, but Brittany is richly served this time round with three stage finishes including Tuesday’s finale atop the Mur de Bretagne.

The “Breton wall” is a two-kilometre climb, starting at one in 10, with sections at one in eight and ending with an 800 metre drag to the line. It entails about 90 seconds flat-out effort, and is preceded by a series of smaller climbs and a high-speed descent to the foot of the finish hill.

The technical details matter, because this is an unusually demanding finish. The fight to get to the front of the bunch for the final 10km will be more than usually intense, making the risk of crashing even greater.

Saturday’s stage winner, Philippe Gilbert, will start as favourite for the victory, while Hushovd is likely to struggle at the end. David Millar and Geraint Thomas have a chance of taking the yellow jersey, but the best candidate is probably Cadel Evans, who was best of the rest behind Gilbert at Les Herbiers, and has to finish just one second ahead of Millar and Hushovd.

1 Tyler Farrar (USA) Team Garmin-Cervelo 4hrs 40mins 21secs, 2 Romain Feillu (Fra) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team, 3 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Movistar Team, 4 Sebastien Hinault (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale, 5 Mark Cavendish (Gbr) HTC-Highroad, 6 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Team Garmin-Cervelo, 7 Julian Dean (Nzl) Team Garmin-Cervelo, 8 Borut Bozic (Slo) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team, 9 Andre Greipel (Ger) Omega Pharma-Lotto, 10 Jimmy Engoulvent (Fra) Saur-Sojasun, 11 Denis Galimzyanov (Rus) Katusha Team, 12 Sebastien Turgot (Fra) Team Europcar, 13 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling, 14 Gianni Meersman (Bel) FDJ, 15 Geraint Thomas (Gbr) Sky Procycling, 16 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Leopard Trek, 17 William Bonnet (Fra) FDJ, 18 Andreas Kloden (Ger) Team RadioShack, 19 Rob Ruijgh (Ned) Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team, 20 Philippe Gilbert (Bel) Omega Pharma-Lotto, Other: 33 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale all same time.

GENERAL CLASSIFICATION: 1 Thor Hushovd (Nor) Team Garmin-Cervelo 9hrs 46mins 46secs, 2 David Millar (Gbr) Team Garmin-Cervelo at same time, 3 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team at 0.01, 4 Geraint Thomas (Gbr) Sky Procycling at 0.04, 5 Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Leopard Trek at same time, 6 Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Procycling at same time, 7 Frank Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek at same time, 8 Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek at same time, 9 Jakob Fuglsang (Den) Leopard Trek at same time, 10 Bradley Wiggins (Gbr) Sky Procycling at same time, 11 Manuel Quinziato (Ita) BMC Racing Team at same time, 12 Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Leopard Trek at same time, 13 George Hincapie (USA) BMC Racing Team at same time, 14 Tony Martin (Ger) HTC-Highroad at 0.05, 15 Peter Velits (Svk) HTC-Highroad at same time, 16 Tejay Van Garderen (USA) HTC-Highroad at same time, 17 Mark Cavendish (Gbr) HTC-Highroad at same time, 18 Matthew Harley Goss (Aus) HTC-Highroad at same time, Other: 40 Nicolas Roche (Irl) AG2R La Mondiale at 53 seconds.

TEAM STANDINGS 1 Garmin (United States) 28hrs 30mins 42secs 2 BMC Racing (United States) +1 3 Leopard (Luxembourg) +4 4 Team Sky (Great Britain) 5 HTC - Highroad (United States) +5 6 RadioShack (United States) +10 7 Astana (Kazakhstan) +32 8 Omega Pharma - Lotto (Belgium) +33 9 Europcar (France) +50 10 Quick-Step (Belgium) +56”.