[jyl]

Okay, that was a great sprint.

The Astana train stayed together and held Cav near the front until a little over a km out, then Cav got swamped down to P12-15 ish, alone on the left side of the arrowhead, with Morkov behind him. Alpecin was the only well organized train, on the right with two others plus Van Der Poel leading Phillipsen out. Jakobsen and his DSM leadout were at the head, followed by Kristoff (? red jersey) and De Lie (Belgian champ jersey).

Just inside 1 km Cav was alone in P16 in the middle of the bunch, Girmay next to him with one teammate, and Alpecin was moving up on the right. The bunch shifted to the right, Girmay dropped back, DSM was still on the front, and Alpecin kept moving up with Phillipsen on Van Der Poel's wheel with clear road to his right. Cav squeezed right, jumped onto Phillipsen's wheel as Alpecin was taking the lead. The DSM leadout blew, Jakobsen was in P1 way too early but had to launch, Van Der Poel got on Jakobsen's wheel followed by Phillipsen and Cav. Kristhoff still had a leadout, Jakobsen was quickly overtaken by Van Der Poel on the right and Kristhoff on the left. Van Der Poel faded pretty quickly, Phillipsen went around VDP on the left, and Cav went into the space that opened up in the center.

At about 500m Cav was in P5, even with Phillipsen, then Cav saw a hole on the left, lit the afterburners and accelerated into P1 with Phillipsen jumping on his wheel. Phillipsen chased but couldn't make up any ground on Cav who won by a bike length and a half, a convincing win that he made look easy. Kristoff was third and De Lie was fourth, Jakobsen somehow held on for fifth as Pedersen crashed out on the barriers.

A well-organized leadout for Phillipsen vs an improvised wheel-surfing for Cav, but Van Der Poel wasn't the dominating force of last year and Phillipsen didn't have anything on Cav when they were head to head. It reminded me of the 2021 Tour de France, when Cav beat Phillipsen repeatedly. It was baffling to me that Quickstep didn't bring Cav to the 2022 Tour, instead choosing Jakobsen who won one stage and then left the team.

So, the greatest road sprinter of all time becomes the winner of the most Tour stages, and I don't see anyone challenging that record.

Anyone think Cav is going to notch more wins this Tour? There are three more flat stages (6, 8, 10) before the next mountain stage, then two more (12, 13). I don't know which of those are nailed-on sprints, but there are a number of sprint teams this year - Alpecin (Phillipsen), Astana (Cavendish), Lidl-Trek (Pedersen), Uno-X (Kristhoff), DSM (Jakobsen) - to catch the breaks.

I'd like to see Pedersen win one and Girmay win another. I'd like to see Phillipsen get blanked - he's been crowned the dominant sprinter but I think he's a top ten sprinter who sometimes has the most powerful leadout imaginable. When Van Der Poel had a mechanical on stage 3, Alpecin's leadout fell apart. Today, Van Der Poel got Phillipsen into P5 instead of slingshotting him into P1, and he saw Cav's heels the rest of the way.