Pedersen cashes in as Cavendish crashes out
LIMOGES, France — Mark Cavendish will have to share the record for most career stage wins at the Tour de France.
Competing in his final season, the most successful sprinter in Tour history crashed out during the eighth stage Saturday. His team said he broke his right collarbone and will need surgery.
Cavendish equaled Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins during the 2021 Tour, 13 years after his first success, but was not selected last year.
This edition was his last chance to become the outright record-holder after he announced in May during the Giro d’Italia that he will retire at the end of this season. Cavendish ended the Giro in style, winning the final stage in the center of Rome to post his 17 th stage win at the Italian Grand Tour.
Known as “The Manx Missile” as he’s from the Isle of Man, Cavendish was second in Friday’s seventh stage. Unlike Merckx, who won a record five Tours, Cavendish has never won and specialized in the sprints.
The 38-year-old former world champion crashed with about 39 miles left while riding at the back of the peloton at about 28 miles per hour. TV images showed the veteran rider lying on the ground and holding his right shoulder in pain.
Cavendish went into an ambulance for treatment and looked ashen-faced before his retirement from the race was announced.
With Cavendish out of the picture, former world champion Mads Pedersen claimed his second career stage win with a big burst of power to win a mass sprint.
Defending champion Jonas Vingegaard kept the yellow jersey after the 125-mile eighth stage from Libourne to Limoges in Central France.
Pedersen proved the strongest in the long final stretch of road leading to the finish line and the Danish rider held off a late challenge from Jasper Philipsen, who had won all three previous sprints this year.
Wout Van Aert completed the stage podium in third.
Vingegaard spent the day well protected by his Jumbo-Visma teammates and kept his 25second lead over two-time champion Tadej Pogacar in the general classification. Jai Hindley remained in third place, 1 minute, 34 seconds off the pace.
The pulsating duel between Pogacar and Vingegaard is expected to resume during Sunday’s ninth stage, which finishes with a spectacular climb to Puyde-Dome, a famed volcanic crater in the Massif Central region of south-central France, which last hosted a stage 35 years ago.
The first rest day follows in Clermont-Ferrand on Monday.