challenge by Ian Stannard, who recovered from a puncture in the penultimate lap to claim silver. In July, he won stage five of the Tour de France, giving him twenty-four career Tour stage wins. He was greeted on the line by André Darrigade, the previous record holder for most Tour stages won by a sprinter. In the eleventh stage, a individual time trial, a spectator doused Cavendish with urine. On the thirteenth stage from Tours to Saint-Amand-Montrond, he rode with a fourteen-man breakaway with to go and out-sprinted Peter Sagan to win the stage—his 25th Tour de France stage win. Later that month Cavendish decided to ride the Danmark Rundt winning the race's final stage. In September, he returned to the track for the first time since the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, competing at the velodrome in Ghent for the International Belgian Open. Finishing second in the scratch race and third in the madison with Owain Doull, Cavendish had not ruled out the prospect of competing in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro having earned enough points to qualify for the UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics. On 18 September, Cavendish won stage four of the Tour of Britain, outsprinting Elia Viviani in Llanberis in the Snowdonia national park. He repeated the win three days later to take stage seven—again out-sprinting Italy's Elia Viviani to the finish on Guildford High Street. He also won the final stage in London the next day. 2014 A quiet start to the year, Cavendish decided not to compete in the Giro d'Italia. His best Classics result was a fifth place in the Milan–San Remo. He won four stages and the points classification at the Tour of Turkey. In the first stage of the 2014 Tour de France, which started in Yorkshire, England, from Leeds to Harrogate, Cavendish crashed out during a collision he caused in the final few seconds of the sprint finish. He suffered a separated right shoulder and did not start the next stage. He came back to competition at the Tour de l'Ain, where he was winless. He then showed some form at the Tour du Poitou-Charentes, winning the first two stages. Cavendish competed in the Tour of Britain in September, coming third in the first stage in Liverpool and second in the final stage in London. Overall, his 2014 season proved to be one of his least successful,