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MARK CAVENDISH exchanged his rainbow jersey of world champion for the gold jersey of race leader in the Tour of Britain yesterday, when he sprinted to his second consecutive stage win in Blackpool.
After his Sky team split the peloton with 25km to go and reeled in a four-man breakaway group containing Ronan McLaughlin of Sean Kelly's An Post team 15km later, Cavendish outsprinted Garmin Sharp's Steele Van Hoff and overnight leader Leigh Howard to take the race lead along the promenade.
The Manx rider, seen as the best sprinter in the world, now leads by three seconds from the Aussie.
Although he was dropped from the lead group in the final kilometres, Donegal native McLaughlin was awarded the 'combativity prize' for his aggressive riding on the stage.
SNOOKER
Snooker's governing body have launched an investigation into Steve Davis' 4-0 win over Thailand's Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in a PTC tournament last Saturday, due to concerns over betting patterns.
The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association were made aware of odds on Asian betting exchanges moving considerably in the hours before the match.
Thepchaiya began as an odds-on favourite. By the time the match began, he was odds-against.
It is understood the WPBSA do not consider six-time world champion Davis (55) to have breached any rules.
SAILING
Germany's Tommy Mueller lost his position as overall leader in the Brewin Dolphin Dragon Gold Cup at Kinsale yesterday when an all-amateur crew defied a star-studded professional fleet to claim their second win of the week.
Mueller has dropped to fourth place but the top places are now only separated by a handful of points with one race today and another tomorrow remaining.
Russia's Dmitry Samokhin, Andrey Kirilyuk and Aleksey Bushuev are the new leaders, but it was race four winners Graham and Julia Bailey, with Dylan Potter and 11-year-old Will Heritage, who were the talk of the fleet for their second consecutive race win.
The British crew now leads the Corinthian class and holds 10th overall and, while they are unlikely to challenge for the Gold Cup, all the top boats with the exception of Samokhin have proven they can have bad days.
Britain's Lawrie Smith had his bad day on Monday when he scored 18th but has steadily climbed back to second overall.
Best of the Irish is Martin Byrne with Adam Winkelmann and Pedro Andrade in ninth overall after they delivered their game plan of another top-10 place yesterday in the 60-boat fleet.
