Narbonne, France (My Sportsbook) - Briton Mark Cavendish won a furious sprint to the finish line to take the 12th stage of the Tour de France on Thursday, while Cadel Evans was able to keep his overall lead.

Cavendish, who has now won three stages, edged France's Sebastien Chavanel to win the 168.5-kilometer trek through rolling hills and plains from Lavelanet to Narbonne in three hours, 40 minutes and 52 seconds.

"I'm a bit tired now but I'm still the fastest across the line," Cavendish said. "This was the hardest of all three sprints. It was really fast all day. It was really windy but I didn't lose my cool and believe I rode a good sprint."

More doping news kicked off the 12th stage when Italian rider Riccardo Ricco of Saunier Duval tested positive for the banned blood-booster EPO forcing his team to suspend activities and drop out of the Tour.

According to the French sports daily L'Equipe, one of Ricco's urine samples collected by the French Anti-Doping Agency AFLD showed traces of a third generation EPO called CERA (Continuous Erythropoietin Receptor Activator).

Saunier Duval voluntarily withdrew after the positive test and will not compete in any races until further notice. Ricco had won two stages in the Tour (the sixth and ninth) and was ninth overall in the standings.

The first Australian to hold the yellow jersey, Evans is trailed in the overall standings by Frank Schleck of Luxembourg, then American Christian Vande Velde, Austria's Bernhard Kohl, and Russia's Denis Menchov.

"Another day, another yellow jersey," Evans said. "I'm happy enough with that. "It's hard to stay up front in the peloton all the time but it's important to do that because there's the risk of being caught up in a crash. That's really what I had to look out for today. There wasn't any real threat of losing the jersey in a stage like this so I just wanted to be careful, do the minimal amount of work and stay safe."