Mark Cavendish once more underlined his position as the dominant sprinter in this year’s Tour de France as he claimed his second consecutive stage win.

Cavendish, of Team Columbia-HTC, followed up yesterday’s victory to claim the 196.5km stage three from Marseilles to La Grande-Motte ahead of Thor Hushovd (Cervelo TestTeam) and Cyril Lemoine (Skil-Shimano).

The Isle of Man rider was part of a decisive 27-man breakway group, unusual because it contained several of the race’s leading riders including Fabian Cancellara, the world time trial champion and winner of the opening stage and seven-time winner Lance Armstrong. Notably, though, it did not contain Armstrong’s Astana team-mate Alberto Contador.

Team Colombia had to make most of the running, with most of their rival teams looking to conserve energy ahead of tomorrow’s team time-trial stage looming.

“It was like junior racing sometimes,” Cavendish, who became the first Briton to hold the green jersey for two days in a row, said. “Everybody’s nervous about the team time trial tomorrow I think so we were the only team who were willing to take it on. What a way to stick it to them.

“It was closer than it was yesterday. Thor’s one of the best sprinters on the planet. Again Mark Renshaw did everything right to launch me perfect and I was able to finish it off.

“I’m just taking the victory for the team. The small group was caused by my team riding 100 per cent.”

Cancellara, who finished sixth in the same time as the leading trio, maintains the yellow jersey, 33 seconds clear of Tony Martin (Columbia) and 40 secs clear of Armstrong in the general classification.

Contador, who finished 49th, some 41 seconds adrift, is now 59 seconds off the pace, while Britain’s Bradley Wiggins is fifth, a minute behind Cancellara.

The day started with Belgium’s Jurgen van de Walle becoming the first rider to leave the Tour, pulling out before today’s stage after suffering a broken collarbone in a fall yesterday.

Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) and Maxime Bouet (FDJ) made an early breakaway, with Ruben Perez Moreno (UCI ProTour) and Koen de Kort (Skil-Shimano) subsequently joining them, quickly pulling six minutes clear of the peloton.

The field was slow to respond to the breakaway quartet, who stretched their lead past 11 minutes before a response finally came at around the halfway mark. In red-hot conditions in Provence, when the lead did start to reduce, it did so quickly and was down to around eight minutes as they began the climb up the Col de la Vayede.

The gap continued to lessen as the riders passed the city of Arles and through the Camargue regional park. Saxo Bank’s Marzio Bruseghin suffered a gashed knee in a crash amid the pack as the lead came down further with 50km to go.

And the lead evaporated completely just inside 30km, the plucky De Kort the last of the breakaway quartet to finally fade away as the lead chasing group, which included Cancellara and Armstrong, hauled them in.

That group, which also included all of Cavendish’s Columbia team but not Contador, then pulled away, establishing a lead of 30 seconds with 10km to go. The pack were able to make no impact as the leaders entered the closing stages, and Cavendish again stormed through to claim the sixth stage win of his career.