Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) – Giro d’Italia red jersey
As arguably the sport’s greatest ever sprinter, the Manx Missile has an enviable collection of prized jerseys, and Cavendish took full advantage of his winter switch to Omega Pharma-Quickstep to add a few more this year.
Having stormed to the second overall stage race victory of his career at the Tour of Qatar – courtesy of winning each of the final four stages – Cavendish has since gone on to become British champion for the first time, taken his career Tour de France wins to 25, and earned three stage victories at the Tour of Britain.
His defining moment in 2013 however came at the Giro d’Italia, where the Manxman completed the Grand Tour sprint jersey treble by adding the maglia rosso to his points jerseys from the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana.
Having outsprinted Nacer Bouhanni (FDJ.fr) and Elia Viviani (Cannondale) to earn the prestigious maglia rosa after stage one, Cav went on to take further wins in stages six, 12 and 13 – passing 100 career victories in the process. That still left him 11 points behind overall race leader Vincenzo Nibali in the race for the red jersey going into the final stage, but having missed out in 2012, he was not to be denied again and won each of the three intermediate sprints before another masterclass sealed his fifth stage win of the 2013 Giro and the 41st of his Grand Tour career.
The Manx Missile is now part of an elite quintet with Eddy Merckx, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, Laurent Jalabert and Alessandro Petacchi as the only men to have won all three Grand Tour points classifications.
