Mark Cavendish out of Tour and Peter Sagan disqualified after horror crash
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Cavendish withdraws from Tour de France with broken shoulder
Sagan ‘does not agree’ with decision, Démare wins stage
Mark Cavendish has withdrawn from the Tour de France after he suffered a fractured shoulder blade in a horrendous crash 200 metres from the finish line on stage four. Cycling’s governing body quickly disqualified the world champion, Peter Sagan, for a dangerous move in the sprint finish in which he appeared to elbow the British rider to the floor.
Tour de France: Arnaud Démare wins stage four after Mark Cavendish crash – as it happened
Cavendish also sustained a heavy cut to his hand and was taken to hospital for x-rays to investigate injuries to the shoulder he damaged in a similar pile-up at the end of the first stage of the Tour in Harrogate in July 2014. In a chaotic finale, the yellow jersey holder, Geraint Thomas, also fell – but to no ill effect.
On Tuesday night it was confirmed that Cavendish’s Tour is over. “I’m obviously massively disappointed to get this news about the fracture,” he said. “I feel I was in a good position to win [the stage] and to lose that and even having to leave the Tour, a race I have built my whole career around, is really sad.”
Cavendish’s sporting director at Dimension Data, Roger Hammond, described the move that led to Sagan’s expulsion as “a flick of the elbow which was completely outrageous”. He added: “No one comes out of it well. This is a sad, sad day for the sport, Sagan is a hero and an idol of mine but a precedent has to be set.”
Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish during the final sprint of the 4th stage of the Tour de France.
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Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish during the final sprint of the 4th stage of the Tour de France. Photograph: Yoan Valat/EPA
Sagan was initially relegated to 115th place on the stage – last place in the lead bunch – and received the standard sanction of a 30-second time penalty but the president of the jury, Philippe Marien, said the referees applied a sterner sanction because the world champion “had put several other rider’s.
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