Mark Cavendish delivers despite having "to go in the wind from afar"

Mark Cavendish has taken his fourth win of the season, once again after Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team managed to deliver a strong leadout to success.

“We are here with half a climbing team and half a sprint train. Pieter Serry has been in the lead for a long time today. Mauro Schmid and Davide Ballerini were supposed to take care of the last kilometer, but we didn't see Mauro. Ballerini was alone in the lead for the last ten kilometers. He did that very well," Cavendish said in a post-race interview.

Despite the lack of success in the team's leadout plan, towards the final kilometer when it mattered Michael Morkov - as expected - managed to deliver Cavendish in pole position to the sprint, and Cavendish only had to sprint to the line to get his 16th Giro win. He took advantage of several riders having been blocked against the barriers, as he kept the lead in a long sprint.

He added: “They did an incredible job. We worked hard for this and delivered today. Morky [Morkov] remained very cool in the end. In the end I had to go in the wind from afar. That meant I had to keep the field on the left, but I managed. So I was able to hold out in the wind," he concluded.

This win comes as a sigh of relief for the Briton, however he already has his sights on the next sprints where he will be ambitioning more wins.