Saint-Fargeau, France - British super-sprinter Mark Cavendish grabbed his second consecutive victory of the 2009 Tour de France by easily outpacing his rivals to the finish line of Wednesday's 11th stage. The win was the fourth for the 24-year-old Team Columbia rider on this year's Tour, and the eighth of his two-year Tour de France career.
Led to within 100 meters of the finish in the town of Saint- Fargeau by his Team Columbia teammates, Cavendish beat American Tyler Farrar by half of a bicycle length. Yauheni Hutarovich of Belarus finished third.
But, despite his sporting success, Cavendish is not making many friends in France, the daily L'Equipe reported Wednesday.
The newspaper quoted a number of French Tour riders, who did not give their names, as saying that Cavendish has repeatedly insulted the French people and the country.
"Cavendish is racist," one of the riders told L'Equipe. "He is anti-French. He's going to have to pay attention to what he says. We are not going to put up with that forever."
Asked about the report by France 2 television, Cavendish said, "It's absolutely not true. I'm even making an effort to speak French. I love being here."
He accused the media of looking for controversy. "It's a bit offensive," he said. "They have no doping to write about so they look for other things."
His time for the 192km course from Vatan was 4 hours 17 minutes 55 seconds, a brisk average speed of 44.67 kph.
This was substantially faster than Tuesday's stage, when riders staged a slowdown to protest the experimental ban during the stage of the use of radio communication with team managers.
A decision on whether the experiment will be repeated on Friday's stage is to be taken later Wednesday or on Thursday. Most of the 20 teams riding in the Tour are against it, with riders claiming that not having radio contact with team officials increases the risk of an accident.
The race leaders all finished together with the main pack, so Italian Rinaldo Nocentini continues to lead Spain's Alberto Contador by 6 seconds in the overall standings, with the seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong in third place, 8 seconds behind.
The Tour ends July 26 in Paris.
