Cav gets the elbow
TOUR RAGE LEAVES MANX MISSILE IN FIGHT TO RACE ON
MARK CAVENDISH accused Peter Sagan of elbowing him into the barriers in a sickening 40mph case of Tour de France bike rage.
And the race jury agreed, sensationally throwing Sagan off Le Tour.
Cavendish feared the worst after MRI scans were understood to confirm he had fractured a shoulder blade, ending his
tour. Sagan visited the Manx Missile’s team bus to apologise, but it didn’t save him from being chucked off the Tour for dangerous riding.
And, as Cavendish left for hospital with his arm in a sling, he glowered: “I’m not a fan of him, putting his elbow in me like that. I need stitches in a finger and the shoulder. I was following Arnaud Demare’s wheel and then Sagan came over. A crash is a crash, but I’d just like to know about the elbow.”
In a torrid finish to the 124-mile run from Mondorf-les-Bains to Vittel, Cavendish was gunning for the 31st stage win of his Tour de France career when he smashed into the barriers, 130 yards from the line. Another Brit, ex-Team Sky rider Ben Swift, was sent 10ft into the air over his handlebars in the carnage before French rider Demare (above) held off Sagan’s charge to win the stage. Incredibly, just seconds earlier in another pile-up, overall race leader Geraint Thomas had picked himself up unscathed after surviving his second crash in 48 hours in the Yellow Jersey.
Amid the carnage, Thomas held on to the leader’s fabled maillot jaune for a fourth day.