Cavendish wins the 15th stage of the 2011 Tour de France

Mark Cavendish extended his lead in the points competition of the Tour de France on Sunday, after the British rider sealed another textbook sprint victory in the 15th stage.

Ably supported by team-mate Mark Renshaw, Cavendish cut away with 200 metres to go to beat American Tyler Farrar and Alessandro Petacchi of Italy to the finish line.

The 193km run from Limoux to Montpellier was the Manxman's 19th overall win in the Tour de France and he now leads the points in the battle for the green jersey.

"What gets you through the mountains is the smell of success on a day like this," Cavendish told reporters. "The guys know that it doesn't matter how much I suffer in the mountains. If I get a smell of the finish line, I'll try and win."

Watch full video highlights here

A list of the overall standings is available here

The Briton is now seventh overall in terms of stage victories, tied with 1909 Tour winner Francois Faber.

"My name is on the list but it is for the [HTC Highroad] team. I don't think there's a sprinter with more wins on the Tour and it shows the commitment these guys have towards me. I'm incredibly lucky for that," he said.

"I struggled a lot in the mountains and for them I wanted it to be worth it. It was technically difficult, lots of winds, lots of attacks but we stayed disciplined."

In the race for the green jersey, Cavendish leads Spain's Jose Joaquin Rojas by 37 points and Philippe Gilbert of Belgium by 71 ahead of the second rest day.

"You can never take anything for granted. I will try to keep getting points and see what happens," he said.

In the overall leader's classification, France's Thomas Voeckler retained the yellow jersey but let the sprinters' teams take centre stage.

"I was not feeling too good today. I had the rest day on my mind, like many of us," he said.

Voeckler leads Frank Schleck of Luxembourg by 1min 49secs, with Australia's Cadel Evans 2mins 6secs behind in third.

Live coverage

The 98th Tour de France started on Saturday 2 July, with 22 teams racing over 3,430km in 21 stages, culminating with a finish at the Champs-Élysées in Paris -- a full list of dates is available here.

Live online coverage of the Tour is available in the UK and Europe via Eurosport, with subscriptions starting from £3.99. Full race highlights are available every evening on ITV.

In the US, the tour will be shown live on Versus, with repeats and highlights being aired on NBC. The entire event is also available online. NBC is selling a Tour de France all access pass for $29.95, which provides HD video of every stage of the race all the way through to the final leg, when cyclists reach Paris on 24 July. Read more at NBC, via GigaOm.

For viewers in other countries, Steephill.tv has a comprehensive list of channels showing the Tour in other regions.