Cycling: Dean climbs podium again

New Zealander Julian Dean chalked up his second podium finish of the Tour de France but was unable to match British sprint ace Mark Cavendish in the final burst yesterday.

By crossing second in the 198km 18th stage from Salies-de-Bearn up the long, straight finish on the Quinconces quayside, Dean repeated his feat on stage four of the arduous tour. Dean, who usually has the lead-out role in sprint finishes, took over as his team's main sprinter after American Tyler Farrar was forced to drop out with a broken wrist.

While no match for multi-stage winner Cavendish, Dean headed the rest, capping a Tour in which he was headbutted by Australian Mark Renshaw, then crash-tackled by an over-zealous policeman while warming up this week.

For Cavendish it was his fourth Tour stage win this year and 14th of his career. He made it look easy: within the last several hundred meters, he swerved left to get around two riders including Norwegian sprint star Thor Hushovd, then moved back right to cross alone.

At the finish, he looked back over his shoulder, almost seeming to taunt his rivals, winning by several bike lengths. Italy's Alessandro Petacchi was third.

"I just wanted to conserve my energy," Cavendish said, when asked why he appeared to let up at the end. He said he wanted to save himself a bit for last night's tough time trial.

"I doesn't matter whether you win by a lot or half a bike length," he said, after clocking 4hr 37m 9s, the same time awarded to the main pack.

"I just wanted to win."

With his third place, Petacchi swiped the green jersey awarded to the best sprinter from Hushovd, who finished 14th in the stage and gave up any hope of recovering it by the final stage tonight on Paris' Champs-Elysees.

Dean, in his sixth tour, almost made the most of his last opportunity to try for an elusive stage victory, on a stage where the overall contenders try to stay out of trouble and save energy for the penultimate stage, a 52km time-trial when the podium finishes are generally decided.

Spanish tour leader Alberto Contador knew he just needed to stay out of trouble, to retain his buffer from Andy Schleck of Luxembourg. Schleck, who normally isn't as strong as the Spanish defending champion in time-trials, says he's still got a card to play.

"I feel good. I have nothing to lose," Schleck said. "He's better but I'm not bad too. We're going to see a battle."

Last week, Dean was at the centre of the sprint finish to Bourg-les-Valence in stage 11 that led to the disqualification of Australian rider Renshaw for headbutting Dean and cutting off Garmin's star sprinter Farrar, who placed third behind Renshaw's HTC Columbia teammate, Cavendish.

In last year's race, Dean was one of two riders shot by someone in the crowd with an air-pellet gun. A week after the tour, surgeons discovered some of the pellet was still in his finger.

Dean has been a member of the "grupetto" (large group of sprinters who band together to help each other survive the mountain stages behind the main race) in the past week.

- NZPA