Cavendish wins his 3rd Tour of Missouri stage in St. Charles

As in the 2007 Tour of Missouri, a huge crowd was in place for the finish of this stage. Unlike 2007, the breakaway did not succeed--the peloton came back together a few miles before the end and the result was a tremendously fast sprint finish.

For the third time this tour, Mark Cavendish of Team Columbia won the sprint. That puts him in the sprint jersey, while Christian Vande Velde remains in yellow.

Reports were that a large crowd was again on the King of the Mountains hill near Defiance.

Threatened rain never appeared, but there was a fairly strong headwind for the riders in the last stretch, which was one factor helping keeping the peloton together.

As usual, the Local Organizing Committee and area volunteers (who number almost 3000 in total statewide now) did a great job in putting the finish line and associated festival together.

After the race, Governor Matt Blunt and Lt. Governor Peter Kinder addressed the crowd. With crowds so far showing as larger than last year and regional, national, and international media coverage way up (maybe as much as 10X higher in local & regional coverage, from my own observation), Kinder made the point that the Tour is a clear win for the state and the Tour's sponsors, as a tourism and marketing tool.

(Kinder has recently been debating his opponent in the race for Lieutenant Governor, and topics have included the Tour of Missouri. Kinder's opponent, Sam Page, has said that the Tour is a poor use of taxpayer money while Kinder maintains that spending $1-2 million to receive an economic benefit of over $26 million is sound business, and the state's portion of the race is startup funding that will almost certainly be able to be reduced in future years--resulting in an even greater return on investment for the contribution of the Division of Tourism and other state agencies to the event.)

Complete photos from the Stage 6 finish in St Charles are here, and you can view them as a slideshow here. Photo highlights below:






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