It is his second victory in this year’s Giro, putting him in the top 10 in the overall standings. On a day when his partner Peta Todd was at the finish line with thier new baby daughter Delilah he was keen to do them proud.

“As I couldn’t sleep after my fall, I wasn’t 100% and I felt tired,” Cavendish said. “However, in front of my girlfriend and my daughter i couldn’t afford to slip up.

The World Champion celebrated by taking Delilah to the podium and hoped she was proud of her dad, saying “It is the first time Delilah Grace has come to watch me race and she got to go on the podium with me. Have you noticed she is wearing pink? I am very proud of her and I want her to be proud of me.”

Stage 3 winner Matt Goss showed his respect for Cavendish by saying “Cavendish is easily the strongest rider”

Ramunas Navardauskas, of Lituania, finished in the pack to retain his pink jersey and is five seconds ahead of his Garmin-Barracuda team-mate Robert Hunter.

The crash happened when Roberto Ferrari changed his line dramatically cutting across Cavendish’s path clipping his front wheel. Latewr Ferrari was relegated to last place in the stage which was won by Matt Goss.

Team Sky were furious. “I hope the guy who did that is punished,” said the sports director, Steve de Jongh. “Cav is ok, but he has lost a lot of skin. It was a really nasty crash. The important thing, though, is that he is OK”

“It’s a new team (SKY) for me this year, some of the riders here hadn’t worked with me before as a squad, but races like these Grand Tours are the ones I thrive in.” Cavendish said.

Winning the 2^nd stage – a 128 mile loop which started and finished in the Danish town of Herning, he won his eighth career stage victory in the Giro. In the past it has taken Mark a day or two to find his sprinting legs in a Grand Tour having only won at the first attempt in Brignoles in the 2009 Tour de France.

Mark looked in danger of being boxed in, in the closing stages but once again his Welsh team-mate Geraint Thomas did a fantastic job of delivering him to the line.

Taylor Phinney (BMC) retains the Maglia Rosa despite dropping his chain 8.1km from the finish.

The World Champion has targeted the pink jersey and victory in the team time trial and said, “We want to win the team time trial and hopefully that will get us the pink jersey – if we could achieve that it would be a massive honour.”

Cav will be joined in Italy by Peter Kennaugh, Ian Stannard, Ben Swift, Geraint Thomas, Bernhard Eisel, Juan Antonio Flecha, Rigoberto Uran and Sergio Henao.

Confident in his team-mates Mark believes Team Sky have “a good squad to go and win stages”.

Mark believed that competing in the Tour de Romandie had given him the chance to “get some miles in the legs so come the start (of the Giro) in Denmark, I’ll be raring to go”.

Stay tuned for updates on the Giro.

Cavendish who was racing for the first time since his short break due to the birth of his baby daughter Delilah rode well finishing third. Mark who is using the Tour for final preparation for the Giro d’Italia tweeted, ‘….Great ride by @GeraintThomas86. Smoked it!! I’m more than happy with 3^rd. #TourDeRomandie’

The 3.34km time trial through Lausanne was won by Cavendish’s Team Sky team-mate Geraint Thomas in 3.29m.

After the win the Geraint said he would now be looking to support Cavendish, “For myself now it’s purely a team role. I’ll be there to help Cav in the sprints wherever they come”

Originally the two weren’t due to meet until the Tour de France but the Team Sky selectors felt the Swiss stage race gave them the chance to test out what is believed to be the line-up for June.

No Briton has won the six stage Tour which begins in Lausanne and finishes with a time trial in ski resort Crans-Montana on Sunday 29 April.

Earlier in the year Wiggins became only the second Briton to win the Paris-Nice race in March while Cavendish will be making his return to the road after the birth of his daughter Delilah.

Mark will look to train through the Tour of Ramandie using it as preparation for the Giro d’Italia which starts on May 5.

The two riders will be joined by fellow Britons Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas in the Team Sky line-up.

Mark was delighted to welcome his baby daughter, Delilah Grace Cavendish, late on Tuesday evening to the world. Making the announcement on social networking site Twitter, ‘Delilah Grace Cavendish was born a couple of hours ago. She & @petatodd are doing very well. So proud of my girls. Happiest day of my life!’

Delilah was due on the 5th April, one day after the finish of the Scheldeprijis which is a race Mark won last year.

Mark and Peta announced the pregnancy last October, revealing Peta was conceived during the Tour de France.

Having had an exceptional 2011 the 26 year old World Champion was a nailed on favourite to take the top prize.

Cavendish also unveiled his desire to support young sportsmen and women from the Isle of Man as cyclist Chris Nicholson and swimmers Charlotte Atkinson and Laura Kinley became the first recipients of the Cavendish Scholarship, receiving support over the next year.

“This island is great at producing sportspeople across the board, across all sports – but you can’t show it when you’re on an island, you need to get away,”

“It’s obvious, you need backing not just in financial ways but also in everything in that the sports council does. I thought now I’m in a position to help people who are in the same boat – literally – that I was in.”  said Cavendish.

In addition, the 2011 Sport Personality of the Year will further support a new programme started by the Isle of Man Cycling for young riders to attend British Cycling Regional School of Racing camps under the banner of Cavendish Racing Isle of Man Cycling.

Mark survived two ascents of the Kemmelberg but was unlucky when someone let loose of the safety line and the gap suddenly grew from 20 seconds to over a minute and a half.

After the race Cav said, “I just happened to be on the wheel that loses the front, just right when we turned left off the descent of the Kemmel”

Cavendish who has taken one, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, of his three spring targets said, “I guess it would have been better to be further in front, but if you’re top 25 over the Kemmel then you’re all right. I was top 25, and thought I was fine, but next time I’ll have to be top 10”

Cavendish will be defending the sprinter’s green jersey he won in Paris last year before taking part in the Olympic road race where he will hope to get Great Britain off to a flying start by winning Gold.

Brailsford who divides his time between being Team Sky’s general manager and British Cycling’s performance director said, “I think just to say you’re going to give each one equal significance and try to win everything is probably the recipe for failure

“What we really need to do is to look at them and say: ‘If you just have one, which one would you take?’

Dave would not reveal the targets selected although many people are suggesting the Manx Missile might never have a better chance to win an Olympic medal.