Cavendish collects second tour stage win

GUEUGNON, France, July 9 (UPI) -- Mark Cavendish sprinted across the finish line in Gueugnon, France, Friday for his second Tour de France stage win in as many days.

Cavendish was fifth as the peloton began to string out toward the end of Friday's 136.5-mile route but was then expertly led by HTC-Columbia team member Mark Renshaw up the right side of the roadway.

That allowed Cavendish to pull free and finish a couple of bike lengths ahead of runner-up Tyler Farrar while Alessandro Petacchi, who won stages Sunday and Wednesday, finished third. Robbie McEwen was fourth and Gerald Ciolek fifth in Friday's sixth stage.

Cavendish won in a similar style in Thursday's fifth stage for his first win this year and owns 12 stage wins in his career.

He finished Friday's run, which is the longest single-day course of the 2010 tour, in 5 hours, 37 minutes and 42 seconds. Fourteen riders were given the same finish time with most of the rest of the field officially finishing 3 seconds behind.

Fabian Cancellara continues to lead the overall standings but Geraint Thomas sliced 3 seconds off the lead and trails by 20 seconds. Cadel Evans is still 39 seconds back of Cancellara and Ryder Hesjedal remained 46 seconds behind. Lance Armstrong is still in 18th place 2:30 behind Cancellara.

Stage 7 of this year's Tour de France will be raced Saturday and cover a 99.3-mile route from Tournus east to Le Rousses near the Swiss border. There are two Category 3 climbs and three Category 2 climbs. Two of the Category 2 climbs are in the final quarter of the stage.