Mark Cavendish claimed his second consecutive Tour de France stage win on Monday, producing another fine sprint finish to keep hold of the green jersey.

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

Cavendish was part of a group, which included yellow jersey wearer Fabian Cancellara (Saxo Bank) and Lance Armstrong, but not his Astana team-mate and Tour favourite Alberto Contador, who pulled away in the closing 30km.

Cancellara maintains the yellow jersey, 33 seconds clear of Tony Martin (Columbia) and 40 clear of Armstrong in the general classification, with Contador slipping 59 seconds back. 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 Monday's stage after suffering a broken collarbone in a fall on Sunday.

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 national 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.