NIMES:  It should please the Australian Commonwealth Games team that cyclist Mark Renshaw says he has never felt as strong heading into the third week of a grand tour than he is in this year’s Tour de France which finishes in Paris on Sunday.

In saying that, the Games in Glasgow, for which Renshaw has been selected for the men’s road race on August 3 - one week after the Tour finishes - are not in the forefront of his mind. Far from it, in fact.

As with any rider in France, all that Renshaw can focus on right now as the Tour enters its third of three weeks, is what awaits him in the days ahead - including three brutal stages in the Pyrenees - before Sunday’s big finish in Paris.

“I haven’t even thought about the Commonwealth Games yet,” said Renshaw (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) before Sunday’s 222km 15^th stage from Tallard to Nimes won by Norway’s Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) from Australian Heinrich Haussler (IAM) and Slovakian Peter Sagan (Cannondale).

“I’ve still got three sprints, three mountains days and a time trial until I have to worry about that,” said Renshaw, who was fifth.

Sunday’s stage, followed by the second and final rest day on Monday, saw Italian Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) retain his overall lead. He still leads by 4m 37s on Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and 4m 50s on Frenchman Romain Bardest (Ag2r).

Two opportunities to win a stage now await Renshaw in the absence of his team’s star sprinter, Briton Mark Cavendish, who crashed during the opening stage and did not start stage two.

They are Friday’s 208.5km 19^th stage from Maubourguet Pays du Val d'Adour to Bergerac and Sunday’s 137.5km 21^st and final stage from Evry to the Champs Elysees in Paris.

Of the two, Renshaw believes he is best suited to Sunday’s stage into Paris. It is also certainly the one that he holds closest to his heart, labelling it as “the sprinters' world championship.”

Renshaw still rates his second place after leading out Cavendish to victory in the same stage in 2009 as a career highlight, so imagine how a win now would rank for him.

“It’s the best corner in the whole race, the last one,” Renshaw said of the last left and right chicane 400m from the Champs Elysees  after which the winning sprint often begins.  “It’s awesome. The Champs Elysees is so famous … a great place.”

Renshaw, whose best finishes so far on this Tour since Cavendish left are a third on stage three, fourth on stage six, fifth on stage 15 and seventh on stage four, is buoyed by his relative strength and good health after two weeks of the Tour.

“I can’t remember the last grand tour where I felt this good," Renshaw said, adding that much of that is due a reduction in his usual workload as the Cavendish's lead out rider for the sprints.

It has helped Renshaw that since Cavendish left, his team have won two stages.  Italy's Matteo Trentin won stage seven and Germany's Tony Martin stage nine.

But Renshaw says the pressure is still on the team to fill the void of Cavendish's traditional haul of Tour stage wins that now tally 25 for his career.

“Every day we are trying to chase wins. Without ‘Cav’, we are a little bit down on wins,” Renshaw said.

While Cavendish’s exit opened the door to Renshaw racing for himself, he says that the adaptation from being the lead-out rider who goes with 300m out to the final sprinter is hard.

He says it also requires a different form of preparation going into a grand tour.

“It’s really hard to adjust,” Renshaw said.

“I didn’t train for that role … I would have loved to have had last year’s training with this year … [with] a lot more short, intense efforts in sprint training, rather than longer progressive efforts I have done this year.”

But with results of the third week often being determined on who is freshest and healthiest, rather than fastest, Renshaw is confident he can still snag that elusive win.