Mark Cavendish strengthened his grip on the Tour de France sprints when he won the 11th stage on Wednesday to equal Barry Hoban's British record of eight victories in the world's greatest race. The Isle of Man rider out-sprinted American Tyler Farrar and Yauheni Hutarovich of Belarus at the end of a 192km ride from Vatan to St. Fargeau to take his fourth win in this year's Tour. “It was okay, not too uphill,” said Cavendish. “We started the sprint 150 meters from the line instead of 250/300 meters as we usually do.” Hoban won his eight stages from 1967 to ‘75, the last at the age of 35, while the 24-year-old Cavendish is taking part in only his second Tour. Italian Rinaldo Nocentini retained the overall leader's yellow jersey six seconds ahead of Spain's Alberto Contador with American Lance Armstrong in third place eight seconds off the pace. Briton Bradley Wiggins moved back up to fifth after the race jury decided to cancel a 15-second gap between two bunches in the final part of Tuesday's stage. Communications between sports directors and their riders were allowed after Tuesday's experimental ban. Earpieces were supposed to be banned again for Friday's stage to Colmar but the International Cycling Union (UCI) said that its managing board was asked to vote on the matter by Thursday following team managers' protest. Wednesday's stage was marred by two early crashes that allowed Belgian Johan Van Summeren and Marcin Sapa of Poland to break away after 24km. Nocentini was involved in one of them but avoided injury.
