A rival's words help propel Mark Cavendish to successive victories at the Tour de France, taking his career tally to a remarkable 12 stage successes in three seasons and reviving his green jersey hopes.
The HTC-Columbia sprinter, who won four Tour stages in 2008 and six in 2009, on Thursday recorded his fourth victory of the season on stage five and on Friday he followed it up with his fifth on the 227.5-kilometres sixth stage from Montargis to Gueugnon.
Tyler Farrar (Team Garmin-Transitions) was second and Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-Farnese) third, while the general classification standings altered slightly with a split in the peloton in the finishing straight.
Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) was the only general classification contender to benefit, trimming three seconds off his deficit to race leader Fabian Cancellara (Team Saxo Bank) to lie 20 seconds behind and have the chance of taking the yellow jersey on Saturday's seventh stage from Tournus to Station des Rousses.
Australia's Cadel Evans remains third overall, 39 seconds behind Cancellara.
But, just two days after his green jersey hopes looked doomed, the day belonged to Cavendish, who received words of wisdom from Petacchi on the way to Montargis on Thursday.
Cavendish and the 36-year-old, a winner of two stages so far in the 97th Tour, conversed in the peloton, with the Italian providing the inspiration the Briton needed to return to winning ways.
Cavendish said: "I spoke with Peta in the peloton yesterday and he said to me 'Mark, your problem, I don't think it's in your legs, it's in your head'."
"It's not often you can talk to a rival about problems, but the class that he's got - he's such a good guy."
"That meant an awful lot to me. It certainly worked."
The conversation came after Cavendish had slumped to 12th place on Wednesday in Reims with the finish line at his mercy and after he had crashed on the first road stage in Brussels last Sunday.
Cavendish's two stage wins in successive days take him level with sprint legends Erik Zabel, his mentor at HTC-Columbia, and Mario Cipollini in the Tour statistics.
It also revived Cavendish's hopes for the points classification's green jersey, currently held by defending champion Thor Hushovd (Cervelo Test Team).
Hushovd stands on 118 points, with Petacchi four points behind in second and Cavendish fifth on 85 points after his haul of 70 in two days.
The maillot vert was Cavendish's stated aim prior to the Tour and with at least four sprint stages still to come, he could still win the prize come July 25 in Paris.
With a 33-point deficit to make up, Cavendish is concentrating on the task in hand.
"We've got a hard few days in the Alps and hopefully we can do well in the next stages," said Cavendish.
"That's seven days down now and 14 to go and we'll try our best to win again."
Cavendish again paid tribute to his team and congratulated Maxime Monfort after the Belgian became a father for the first time.
The Briton's leadout man, Australian Mark Renshaw, remained calm as Team Garmin-Transitions set the pace in the latter stages before releasing Cavendish with 200m to go to the finish.
Cavendish was more composed than on Thursday, when his win was accompanied by floods of tears, stemming from the release of a build-up of emotions following a fraught period on and off the bike.
Cavendish had