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Christophe Ena/Associated Press
SAINTE-MARIE-DU-MONT, France — The British cyclist Mark Cavendish can finally wear the yellow jersey.
Cavendish won a sprint Saturday in a crash-marred Tour de France opening stage that finished on Utah Beach, where Allied troops landed on D-Day in 1944, and took the overall lead.
It was Cavendish’s 27th stage win — the third most for any cyclist in Tour de France history, behind Eddy Merckx (34) and Bernard Hinault (28) — but he had never won the opening leg, which is often a time trial.
Cavendish has already worn the leader’s jerseys at the Giro d’Italia and the Spanish Vuelta.
“It’s going be a special day tomorrow to ride a stage in yellow,” Cavendish said. “There was no better place to achieve this than Utah Beach, where soldiers died for us.”
After donning the yellow jersey, Cavendish joined a specially invited group of American, Canadian, French, Belgian and German…
