Cav grabs 20th win of season

Mark Cavendish grabbed his twentieth victory of the season yesterday with a win in the Sparkasse Giro in Germany.

The Columbia-HTC pro outsprinted Gerald Ciolek of Germany to take the 177-kilometre one-day race, held in the city of Bochum.

"It's an impressive result for Mark," commented team manager Rolf Aldag, "He had a tough Tour de France and he's been winning all season, but the victories just keep coming, and this was not an easy race at all.

"It was held on a tough little circuit, with two short but hard climbs and then a fast descent to the finish, and on top of that it was raining most of the day.

"A break of five guys got away but in the last lap and a half we managed to bring things back together for Cavendish.

"He seems to be totally unbeatable in the sprints right now."

Just five riders took part in the event for Columbia-HTC, which Aldag said had forced the team to race defensively

Even so, they covered all the attacks, and kept control of the race for Cavendish.

"It's really impressive when you consider we've just come out of a really successful Tour and all of the riders who took part for us in this race had taken part in the Tour.

"Some guys just lose their way a little if they've done well there, but not Mark and not our team.

"So even if it's not a huge surprise when Cav wins a sprint, this victory shows he's still focused and concentrating on winning."

Cavendish has now reached a tally of 20 victories for the 2009 season

His first win of the year came in the Tour of Qatar in February, and since then he has taken stage victories in the Tour of California, the Tour of Italy, the Tour of Switzerland, six stages in the Tour de France, as well as winning the Milan-San Remo Classic.