The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Cavendish: Our backs are against the wall in France
British rider misses out on sprint stage
Mark Cavendish was left to wonder if he still had the power to keep up with his rivals after Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen won stage seven of the Tour de France in Chartres yesterday.
This was the fourth sprint stage of this year’s Tour, and the fourth in which Cavendish failed to feature, rolling home to a 10th place which is his best of the race so far.
A slight brush against Alexander Kristoff saw him sit up with a couple of hundred metres to go, but by then Groenewegen had already gone as the LottoNL-Jumbo rider led home Quick-Step Floors’ Fernando Gaviria and world champion Peter Sagan of BoraHansgrohe.
“I was following quite good wheels but it was choppy. I was picking wheels and seemed to be in a good position,” Cavendish said.
“But when I went to go, Quick-Step and Bora have just got a different kind of level of top speed. I thought when I first kicked I was floating, I was quite excited. I kicked. Actually I’ve looked at my power and it’s pretty good, but I’m not going to match them. I had a little coming together with Alex at the end, it might’ve been my fault but it just stopped me dead.”
Cavendish has 30 career Tour stage wins, four shy of Eddy Merckx’s record, but it is now three days shy of two years since his last.
Things came to life in the final 10 kilometres as Chartres’ Notre-Dame Cathedral slid into view, with teams fighting for position at the front.
Everything seemed set up for Cavendish as Dimension Data sat on the front of a peloton which was strung out after a double right-hander two kilometres from the finish, but after trying to grab Groenewegen’s wheel, Cavendish brushed past Kristoff before sitting up.
Groenewegen had no such problems as he showed impressive power to burst clear of Gaviria and Sagan, who have two wins each in this Tour already after dominating the early sprint battles.
It was a first stage win of this Tour for Groenewegen and the second of his career after victory on the final day in Paris last year.