PLATEAU DE BEILLE, France // Britain's Mark Cavendish has been warned by his Belgian rival Philippe Gilbert that he will not stop fighting for the green jersey points competition.
"My objective is the green jersey," Gilbert said at the end of Friday's 13th stage. "I'm going to continue attacking."
Once the province of pure sprinters and those who can climb, the green jersey's points competition has taken on a new dimension this year.
Instead of offering points only for the first three riders to cross over the intermediate sprint, organisers are now rewarding the first 15 riders.
It has given Gilbert, a versatile rider who can climb, sprint fairly well and is known for his attacking skills, the chance to aim for a prize which, under the previous format, would be harder for him to achieve.
While many of Cavendish's points have come from his three stage wins in the race so far, he has taken up the challenge by going full out at the intermediate points. Cavendish has 264 points, with the Spaniard Jose Joaquin Rojas of Movistar on 251 and Omega-Pharma's Gilbert on 240.
After his third Tour stage win, on Wednesday, and 18th overall, Cavendish said: "The change in the points system is indifferent. It doesn't make it right or wrong, but it's going to make more of an attacking rider, like Gilbert or Rojas, possibly win the jersey in Paris."
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How much sugar is in chocolate Easter eggs?
- The 169g Crunchie egg has 15.9g of sugar per 25g serving, working out at around 107g of sugar per egg
- The 190g Maltesers Teasers egg contains 58g of sugar per 100g for the egg and 19.6g of sugar in each of the two Teasers bars that come with it
- The 188g Smarties egg has 113g of sugar per egg and 22.8g in the tube of Smarties it contains
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MATCH INFO
Bangla Tigers 108-5 (10 ovs)
Ingram 37, Rossouw 26, Pretorius 2-10
Deccan Gladiators 109-4 (9.5 ovs)
Watson 41, Devcich 27, Wiese 2-15
Gladiators win by six wickets
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
Dolittle
Director: Stephen Gaghan
Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Michael Sheen
One-and-a-half out of five stars
Fixtures:
Wed Aug 29 – Malaysia v Hong Kong, Nepal v Oman, UAE v Singapore
Thu Aug 30 - UAE v Nepal, Hong Kong v Singapore, Malaysia v Oman
Sat Sep 1 - UAE v Hong Kong, Oman v Singapore, Malaysia v Nepal
Sun Sep 2 – Hong Kong v Oman, Malaysia v UAE, Nepal v Singapore
Tue Sep 4 - Malaysia v Singapore, UAE v Oman, Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu Sep 6 – Final
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5