Athletics: Cavendish in the mood to avenge loss

The HTC-Highroad sprinter will seek to extend his prolific Tour record on today's 167.5-kilometre 11th stage from Blaye-les-Mines to Lavaur after Andre Greipel (Omega Pharma-Lotto) yesterday won stage 10.

Greipel overtook his former team-mate Cavendish in the finishing straight to claim a first Tour win after four years of playing second fiddle to the Manxman, who was magnanimous in defeat.

"I'm happy for him," said the 26-year-old, who had a war of words with Greipel throughout their four years as colleagues. "I didn't hesitate but I didn't commit early enough. I kind of rolled round (Liquigas' Daniel) Oss on the last corner and kicked with 170m to go and Greipel just came past and beat me."

Cavendish, though, improved his hopes of taking the points classification's green jersey on the 158km route from Aurillac to Carmaux.

After the six-man breakaway swept the first points available at the intermediate sprint, Cavendish claimed nine points after leading the peloton over the line. His second place was accompanied by 35 points - Greipel claimed 45 for the win - allowing Cavendish to trim his deficit to green jersey incumbent Philippe Gilbert by 35 points. Gilbert (Omega Pharma-Lotto) leads on 226 points, with Jose Joaquin Rojas (Movistar) second on 209 and Cavendish third on 197.

Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) retained the yellow jersey and a lead of one minute 49 seconds over Luis-Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) as the position of the overall contenders remained unchanged.

Bar a minor crash after 11km, it was a day relatively free of incident for a Tour which has so far seen 20 riders withdraw. Remarkably, though, Team Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha and Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) were able to ride - bandaged and nursing cuts and bruises - two days after being knocked down by a TV car. Flecha finished five minutes 33 seconds behind, while Hoogerland was 5:59 down but retained the polka dot King of the Mountains jersey.