Cavendish takes green jersey Tour

Cavendish (right) has won 20 stages of the Tour France Mark Cavendish won the final stage of the Tour of France in Paris, becoming the first winner of the Green Jersey for best sprinter in the race in Great Britain.

Cavendish, who has now won 20 stages of the race in his career, crossed the line first after a frantic sprint in the Champs-Elysées.

"I tried to get the Green Jersey in recent years, it is a special day," said the 26 years of age.

Cadel Evans took the yellow jersey to become the first winner of Tour of Australia.

"They changed the rules this year but I still had to fight until the last stage to get the Green jersey and we had six stage wins for the team this year," said Cavendish.

Manx cyclist finished with 334 points, while Spanish José Joaquín Rojas was second with 272, and the Belgian Philippe Gilbert was 236.

However, despite the relatively comfortable final margin of victory Cavendish wasn't assured of securing the Green jersey until he won in the final sprint.

If Rojas had won the stage Cavendish would have needed to finish the second or third to claim the jersey that so very coveted.

"I have been incredibly fortunate to have a group of colleagues who have committed me winning races and has borne fruit," said the cyclist HTC Highroad.

"I can not emphasize how lucky I am, I could not do it alone." "I'm super happy, super emotional".

Evans had assumed leadership in the general classification of Andy Schleck in Leopard-Trek in the time of the Saturday test and a stage flat 95 km in Paris never offers opportunities to attack their advantage a minute and 34 seconds.

Continue reading the years of the main story in 34 and 160 days, Evans is the oldest winner of the Tour in 88 years and the third oldestEvans was twice second in 2007 and 2008His win ends a streak of 12 consecutive wins of the United States and Spain

Cavendish a less comfortable cushion in the classification's Green jersey with 15 points defined was red at the beginning of the final day.

Any hope housed early entering his rival Rojas were ruined, however, as Slovenian Kristjan Koren led a break of six men unexpected through the intermediate sprint to win 20 points.

Cavendish was the first platoon on the line, while team mate Matt Goss held against Rojas to expand the initiative of deemed to 17 points.

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