Cavendish begs for ‘vile’ abuse to stop

Mark Cavendish has appealed to social media users to stop sending ‘‘vile and threatening’’ comments to him and to his family after the 60kph horror smash which forced him to pull out of the Tour de France and led to the hugely controversial disqualification of double world champion Peter Sagan.

Speaking in a video which he posted on Twitter as he flew home from France yesterday, Cavendish said he was ‘‘paying now as a 32-year-old for the petulant attitude I had as a kid’’.

But he added that was no reason to take it out on his wife or children. ‘‘Vile and threatening comments on social media to myself and my family isn’t deserved and I ask you all to respect that and please don’t send vile and abusive language to myself and my family.’’

Earlier, Cavendish had put a brave face on his dramatic exit from the Tour. He said he harboured no ill will towards his friend Sagan, praised the Slovakian for being ‘‘a great world champion and great for the sport’’, and even managed to joke that at one stage he thought he might ‘‘bleed to death’’ following his crash, likening the scene of the accident to a horror movie.

‘‘My initial worry was my finger,’’ he said. ‘‘It was like an Eli Roth movie. There was a puddle of blood on the floor and I thought ‘I’m going to bleed to death here!’’’

Cavendish also had a serious message, saying he felt the commissaires had made a ‘‘courageous’’ decision to throw Sagan off the Tour, one which could change sprinting forever and make it safer for everyone.

‘‘If I’m honest it takes a lot of courage, a lot of balls, to eliminate the world champion from the Tour de France, and I commend the jury on taking a decision that wasn’t based on influences from social media or anything else,’’ Cavendish said.

Cavendish’s point about social media was a pointed one. As emotions

"Vile and threatening comments on social media to myself and my family isn't deserved and I ask you all to respect that."

Mark Cavendish

ran high in the aftermath of the accident everyone was canvassed for an opinion.

Initially there was a lot of sympathy for the Briton, with Sagan generally felt to be at fault. However, as tensions rose and Sagan’s sentence went from a 30-second time penalty to disqualification from the race altogether, a backlash began.

Some of those who had condemned Sagan in the first instance - Lotto Soudal sprinter Andre Greipel for instance - changed their minds, while many Sagan fans on social media began to criticise Cavendish.

The British rider said it should be left to the professionals to judge. He said: ‘‘What you have to do here is take away the riders and jerseys involved, and look at what happened. That’s why we have a jury, to make those decisions.’’

Meanwhile, Italian Fabio Aru of Astana won the fifth stage yesterday after attacking two kilometres from the summit finish and holding the chasing pack at bay.

In that pack were defending champion Chris Froome and Australia’s Richie Porte, who tested each other on the final climb before finishing third and fourth respectively.

By finishing third Froome took the yellow leaders jersey off team-mate Geraint Thomas, who struggled on the final climb and is now 12 seconds behind Froome.