Mark Cavendish's lead-out man Mark Renshaw described the final sprint that led to his leader's 26th Tour stage win and said he had never doubted victory would come again.

"In the bus, we spent twenty minutes this morning discussing what we had to do and the final conclusion was: Mark, you just do what you need to do. We spoke about it and knew we had to come from behind because Mark had already been beaten twice and we din't want it to happen again. So today we put him in the wheel of Kristoff and from there he had to win. He's a winner, he knows how to do it. Today the pressure was on but he came through with the goods," he said.

After so many years together, Renshaw said the two hardly had to communicate anymore. 

"There's less and less communication, the crowds are too loud, there's too may trains coming at one time. If I have a chance I glance over my shoulder to see if he's there. He's got trust in me. There was enormous pressure on him on the team, even if we already won two stages," he said.

And the Australian added that he had never believed Cavendish was on the wane.

"I knew from day one that he's' got it. This year is big year. He had  a lot of pressure with a bit of uncertainty for the future and nothing speaks better than results.  It's very similar to 2009 when everybody said he had a crap year and he went back to win four.  Once again he showed the class bike rider he is."