Mark Cavendish (OmegaPharma-QuickStep) was very close to winning the third stage of Paris-Nice, but in the end he failed to pass Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and had to settle for second. He was full of praise of the young Slovakian and his team's effort to tire him before the final sprint.

After the disappointment of being beaten by Matthew Goss (Orica-GreenEdge) in the second stage Mark Cavendish was out for revenge in today's leg of Tirreno-Adriatico. Today he had not problem outsprinting his former Australian teammate, but it was Slovakian superman Peter Sagan who denied him the victory.

Afterwards, Cavendish was impressed by Sagan's performance in the final sprint.

“Gert (Steegmans, ed.) brought me to the last 500m," Cavendish explained. "I tried to get on Greipel’s wheel, but Sagan was already there. I started my sprint early, but someone always comes from behind so I tried to hold something back. Peter did really well.”

The final of the stage was quite lumpy, and beforehand many had doubted the pure sprinters' possibilities to be present in the final. With Sagan being superior on the climbs in comparison to his rivals among the fast finishers, he asked teammate Damiano Caruso to set a furious pace on the final climb.

The effort surely played a role in Sagan's victory by tiring the legs of the likes of Cavendish and Greipel. Cavandish was, however, able to draw positive conclusions from his ability to stay in the group in spite of the accelerations, but was quick to reiterate what he has claimed during the last couple of months: that a repeat of his 2009 victory in Milan-Sanremo is out of the question.

“Cannondale went hard on the climb and I lost of lot of positions, but I was happy to hang on," he said. "We can take a lot of good stuff from today. The climbs will decide Milan-Sanremo. But I can’t win Milan Sanremo - I can’t win Milan Sanremo."

With the remaining road stages in this year's Tirreno-Adriatico being suited to climbers or puncheurs, today's stage was Cavendish last opportunity to go for personal glory. Even if he still leads the race, he will settle into a domestique role on tomorrow's queen stage to bring teammates Tony Martin and Michal Kwiatkowski into a good position for a tilt at overall success.