Mark Cavendish 'happy' with sixth placed finish on Stage 3 of the Tour de France as he chases record stage win

Mark Cavendish praised the way his Astana Qazaqstan team performed as he took a sixth placed finish on Stage 3 of the Tour de France. Eurosport’s pundits on The Breakaway clashed over whether the result was positive or not, with Adam Blythe suggesting it was “not good enough by far” as Cavendish missed his first sprint opportunity to secure a record 35th stage win. Ad Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took victory during a dramatic sprint finish and despite missing out, Cavendish was in good spirits as the stage came to an end.

Tour de France'It’s not good enough by far' — Blythe not impressed with Cavendish Stage 3 finish32 MINUTES AGO “Yeah I'm happy with that. Ok, obviously, we'd like to win, but I'm happy with how the boys rode, I'm happy with the speed. You see the team are up there with more dialled teams, the teams that do it day-in, day-out.” Speaking about how his team-mates approached the day, Cavendish said: “We had a plan to get me at the front there, with 2km to go, into that u-turn, that's what the boys committed too, that's what they did perfect.

So actually it was job complete there, it was just down to me trying to find the right wheels after that.” Cavendish had already conceded that the stage finale perhaps did not fit his profile. “I was OK. I'm happy with the speed, 500m to go, I wasn't even in the top-10, maybe 15th position.

I'm happy with that. We said at the beginning that that's not the best kind of finish for me, it was more for someone like Jonathan Milan or Wout van Aert", he said. Cavendish’s former team-mate Mark Renshaw has been brought in by Astana to assist the team as a sprint consultant and it is something the British rider is relishing.