With the best cycling team in the world leading him out, Columbia’s Mark Cavendish is virtually unbeatable in races that come down to a bunch sprint.

He knows it. His team knows it. His competitors know it. Everyone knows it.

It’s little wonder that the brash Brit is confident to the point of cockiness. Dude’s good, and he’s riding behind the best team in the world.

On Saturday, he picked up his third stage victory in the Tour of Missouri, riding Michael Barry’s and Big George Hincapie’s leadout to the finishing line in St. Charles ahead of Ivan Dominguez of Toyota-United and Springfield native Brad Huff of Jelly Belly.

“I say it all the time, and I’ll say it again: If I didn’t have a great team, I’d have a good chance to win. If I have that great team behind me, I have no chance to lose,” said Cavendish, who is wearing the green jersey of the top sprinter. “I’m glad to have a team that works so selflessly for me.”

Columbia is a bit decimated after losing John Devine and Craig Lewis in a crash in Stage 5, so it was left to Michael Barry and Hincapie to do the heavy lifting Saturday in the final kilometer, which was a bit sketchy with a pair of 90-degree corners.

“We studied the last kilometre this morning;  we knew there was a left corner with 1 K to go and a right corner with 700 meters to go,” Canvendish said. “In the book the right hand corners didn’t look so sharp. There were some guys skidding toward us and I just tried to stay up right.

“George went. ‘Bam!’ When he goes there is no one who can challenge him. … Health Net tried to go on the right and I started my sprint with 200 meters to do what I normally do.”

With the last corner being kind of sketchy, Cavendish’s bike handling skills from track cycling and some, uh, intangibles helped in that regard.

“When you’ve got guys with their back wheels locked up, you’ve got to have good bike handling skills - and, more importantly, the (rhymes with calls) to keep it upright,” Cavendish said. “I was scared for a minute but I was following George and he gets me around the corners safely.”

And once Cavendish is delivered safe and sound, few can challenge him and even fewer concern him.

“I’m not scared of anyone,” he said.

Try as they might, neither Dominguez nor Huff could pass him.

Dominguez said he hesitated for a split-second, and “sitting down” when Cavendish momentarily went back into the saddle after Hincapie surged ahead in the lead out. “That one second was my big mistake. I should have gone before him. You have to make him come around you and not you go around him.”

That’s easier said than done with Columbia at the front.

For his part, Huff gives much credit to Columbia for Cavendish’s success.

“80 percent of it is the team,” said Huff, who thundered from about 20th to reach the podium for in his home-state race. “If you’d put me or (Dominguez) with that team, we’d win every time. The team’s a big part of it.

“He really is fast, but whenever you have a team like that, you can’t compete.”

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