Orica-GreenEDGE had a plan to make the race hard in today's stage of the Tour du Poitou-Charentes but all the sprinters made the selection and so Leigh Howard was unable to finish off the work in the sprint. However, it remained a good day as the team remains in GC contention.

ORICA-GreenEDGE remains in contention for overall victory at the Tour Poitou-Charentes heading into the critical double-stage tomorrow.

In a repeat of stage one, today’s racing resulted in a bunch sprint won by Mark Cavendish (OPQ) with ORICA-GreenEDGE’s Leigh Howard contesting in the final to take 18th.

“We had a plan in place to get the whole team together on a climb we identified on the final lap of the finishing circuit,” sport director David McPartland said. 

“We wanted to hit it really hard because although Leigh is not sprinting as well as some of the other sprinters here he is actually climbing really well so we wanted to try to make the sprint a bit more selective.

“In the end it didn’t really produce the result we were after but our organisation was really good and the positive is that we had a plan and the guys stuck to the plan.”

Tomorrow, the Tour Poitou-Charentes continues with a morning stage three road race and critical stage four 24.3km individual time trial in the afternoon.