After several frustrating sprints in the early part of the season, Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) finally opened his account when he benefited from perfect teamwork to win the sprint in the final stage of the Volta ao Algarve. The Brit beat Arnaud Demare (FDJ) and Bryan Coquard (Europcar) in the final dash to the line while his teammate Michal Kwiatkowski finished safely in the bunch to take home the overall win ahead of Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) and Rui Costa (Lampre-Merida).

Mark Cavendish has had a frustrating start to the 2014 season, with his lead-out train failing to deliver him to a win in his first races of the season. Today they finally got everything right when the feared combination of Alessandro Petacchi and Mark Renshaw delivered the Manxman to the win in the final stage of the Volta ao Algarve.

On a day that was destined to end in a bunch sprint, the Belgian team controlled the break throughout the day to give their fast Brit a chance to finally open his account. With a bit of assistance from Europcar and FDJ, they neutralized the day's break with 14km to go, setting up the expected outcome of the stage.

When the riders passed the flamme rouge, Omega Pharma-Quick Step had strung out the peloton and from there, the outcome was never in doubt. Despite the best efforts from top sprinter Arnaud Demare and Bryan Coquard, they were unable to beat the Manx Missile who finally crossed the line in first position.

His teammate Michal Kwiatkowski had a mostly calm day in the saddle, scoring a few bonus seconds in the first intermediate sprint before safely finishing in the bunch. Hence, he even slightly extended his lead over Alberto Contador and Rui Costa to take home the first big stage race win of his career.

With the Volta ao Algarve now over, the riders will leave Portugal to focus on their next targets. While the stage race riders have their sights set on Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, the sprinters and classics riders will travel to Belgium for next week's opening weekend of the Belgian season.

A day for the sprinters

After a couple of hilly days and time trial, the sprinters were expected to get back in the spotlight in the final stage of the Volta ao Algarve. The 155.8km from Tavira to Vilamoura were almost entirely flat and the only thing that could really create some drama was the danger of crosswinds. The race finished with 5 laps on a mostly flat finishing circuit and a slightly downhill straight to the line was expected to produce a very fast sprint.

The stage was the final chance for the riders to come away with a win and so the pace was extremely fast right from the gun. Several riders tried to get clear but for a long time, no one was able to pull out a decisive gap.

Kwiatkowski scores bonus seconds

The race was still all together when the riders reached the site of the first intermediate sprint at the 10.9km mark where race leader Kwiatkowski beat Edgar Pinto (LA Aluminios) and his teammate Tony Martin to pick up 3 bonus seconds and so extend his overall lead a bit. The aggressive racing continued after the sprint but after 15km, 3 riders finally managed to take off.

Bjorn Thurau (Europcar), Angel Madrazo (Caja Rural) and Kirill Pozdnyakov (Rusvelo) opened a gap that reached 55 seconds after 24.5km of racing. Very windy conditions plagued the race though and so the very nervous peloton increased its speed.

The break is formed

After 33.2km of racing, the break was neutralized, setting the scene for new attacks to be launched. After 41km of fast racing, Jan Barta (NetApp-Endura), Oscar Pujol (Skydive) and Francisco Moreno (Louletano) took off while Madrazo, Gairkoitz Bravo (Efapel), and Delio Fernandez (OFM) set off in pursuit.

The two trio merged to form the day's breakaway and the peloton finally allowed itself to take it a bit easier. The gap came up to 2 minutes quickly but the peloton did not allow it to get much bigger than that.

A railroad crossing stops the break

The advantage reached a maximum of 2.17 at the 65km mark and shortly later Barta beat Moreno and Fernandez to take maximum points in the day's second intermediate sprint. The peloton had now upped the pace and 10km further up the road, the break was less than 2 minutes ahead.

It didn't get any easier for the escapees when they had to stop at a railroad crossing and by the time they got going again, they only had 30 seconds left of their advantage. The peloton which was led by Mark Cavendish's Omega Pharma-Quick Step team, showed some mercy, allowing the gap to grow back up to 1.10.

More teams join the chase

The team kept the gap stable at around 1 minute for a long time before getting some assistance from Demare's FDJ team. When they passed the finish line for the second time with 35km to go, they had even been joined by Coquard's Europcar teammates and the gap was down to 34 seconds.

The gap hovered around that mark for quite some time until the three teams finally decided to close it down, bringing the escape to an end 14km from the finish. When they passed the finish line to start the final lap, it was Europcar in control and they kept a hard pace in the hectic finale.

Omega Pharma-Quick Step were looming behind before launching their train and when the peloton passed the flamme rouge, they had taken control. They delivered Cavendish to his first win of the season and made sure that Kwiatkowski finished safely in the bunch, making it a perfect day for the Belgian team.