DEMARE WINS STAGE, SAGAN KICKED OUT
World champ disqualified from Tour after knocking Cavendish into safety barriers
WORLD champion Peter Sagan was sensationally kicked out of the Tour de France yesterday for causing a crash that saw Mark Cavendish taken to hospital in a sprint finish to the fourth stage won by France’s Arnaud Demare yesterday.
“We’ve decided to disqualify Peter Sagan from the Tour de France, as he endangered some of his colleagues seriously in the final metres of the sprint, which happened in Vittel,” race commission president Philippe Marien said.
“We will apply article 12.104 of the rules of the UCI, in which case commissaires [the race jury] can decide to enforce a judgment to disqualify a rider.”
Sagan had jutted out an elbow about 100 metres from the finish line, knocking Cavendish into the metal safety barriers and sending him crashing to the tarmac, with two riders, including German John Degenkolb, hitting the stricken Briton as they somersaulted over the top of him.
Race leader Geraint Thomas was also taken down in a separate crash in the final kilometre of the 207.5km stage from Mondorf-les-Bains to Vittel.
Briton Thomas, who had warned on Monday that he just wanted to stay clear of trouble, hit the deck for the second time in three stages.
“It’s OK, both times I managed to take off quite a bit of speed [before crashing],” Thomas said.
His crash came on a bend just inside the final kilometre, but Cavendish’s fall looked more damaging.
Cavendish did finish the stage, but later left his Dimension Data team bus with his arm in a sling as he was taken to hospital by ambulance.
“Mark Cavendish hurt his shoulder and hand. On his way to the hospital for further examinations,” Dimension Data said on Twitter.
In all the furore of another bunch pile-up, French champion Demare’s achievement of becoming the first Frenchman to win a Tour stage in a sprint finish since 2006 was almost lost.
His win allowed him to claim the sprinters’ green jersey from German Marcel Kittel, winner of Sunday’s second stage, but who was held up by the first crash and unable to contest the sprint.