US rider Tyler Farrar comes close to beating sprint ace Mark Cavendish at Tour de France

Farrar comes close to beating Cavendish at Tour

SAINT-FARGEAU, France — While Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador put aside their rivalry in Wednesday’s 11th stage of the Tour de France, Tyler Farrar almost became the first American rider to win a stage at this year’s race.

Farrar was within half a bike length of catching British sprinter Mark Cavendish, who clinched his second consecutive win and fourth overall.

“It’s frustrating to come second, but at the same time you can see there are only a few guys going that fast right now,” Farrar said after the stage. “Today was great. It was really fast from (the last) 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) to 500 meters (from the line).”

The 25-year-old Farrar, a U.S. junior national champion in 2002, upset Cavendish earlier in the season to win the third stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico race in Italy in March.

“I think (Tyler) is the best sprinter of his generation — apart from Cavendish,” Jonathan Vaughters, the manager of Farrar’s Garmin-Slipstream, told The Associated Press by telephone.

But on Wednesday, Farrar timed his run a bit too late. It was his third top-3 finish of the Tour.

“Maybe he’s not quite as fast, and he needs to figure out how to be a little bit more intelligent,” Vaughters said. “And we need to figure out how to be little bit better as a team.”

With the win, Cavendish took possession of the green jersey as best sprinter while Rinaldo Nocentini of Italy held on to the overall leader’s yellow jersey.

“We’re all just trying to figure out how to get round Cavendish,” Vaughters said.

Cavendish also tied British rider Barry Hoban’s tally of eight Tour stage wins — he got four last year but failed to complete the Tour.

“You can talk all day about how great you are at the dinner table,” the 24-year-old Cavendish said. “Success is the biggest motivation for anyone.”

Armstrong, meanwhile, finished safely in the main pack in 54th place and remains in third place overall, with his Astana teammate Contador crossing the line in the 43rd spot, and still in second place overall.

The general classification stayed the same, with Nocentini leading Contador by six seconds. Armstrong, who did not stop for reporters waiting by his team bus, trails by eight seconds.

“My favorite to win the Tour de France is Contador,” said Vaughters, a former teammate of Armstrong on the U.S. Postal team in the late 1990s.

Thursday’s 12th stage is a 131.4-mile trek from Tonnerre to Vittel featuring six small hills and could again favor sprinters, giving Cavendish the opportunity for a fifth stage win — and Farrar another chance to beat him — before the race heads into a medium mountain stage on Friday.

Armstrong’s rivalry with Contador could be reignited on Friday, with a small opportunity for an attack on one tough climb up the Col du Platzerwasel. However, such a run likely be more effective in Sunday’s 15th stage — which features a tough uphill slog on a category 1 climb up to Verbier.

Early in Wednesday’s stage, several riders fell after two early crashes — including Nocentini — and gave Belgian rider Johan Van Summeren and Marcin Sapa of Poland the opportunity to break away after about 18.6 miles.

“I was in a fall, but nothing too serious. I didn’t hurt myself,” Nocentini said. “We crashed after about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles). A lot of riders fell, me also. But I managed to get back up and finish calmly.”

They were eventually caught by the chasing pack, led by the Team Columbia-High Road riders of Cavendish’s team, about 3 miles from the finish.

The Columbia team worked well together at the front, just as they did on Tuesday, to get Cavendish in the best position to attack in the closing stages. But Farrar pushed hard in the final meters and almost caught the British rider.

Cavendish had mixed feelings about equaling Hoban’s record.

“He’s a nice guy, he talks a lot to me. He’s given me some advice,” Cavendish said. “But he’s also said some things in the press that offended me a little bit. I don’t know, it’s nice to be able to be (mentioned) in the same sentence of Barry Hoban, anyway.”

AP Sports Writer Samuel Petrequin contributed to this report.