Mark Cavendish is out of the Tour de France and World champion Peter Sagan has been thrown out after a crash at the end of stage 4.
Cavendish was forced to withdraw due to injuries sustained in the incident during the stage 4 finale, as he was sent crashing into the advertising hoardings. It was initially thought Cavendish may be able to continue, however x-rays have confirmed a broken shoulder which ends any hopes of surpassing the record number of stage wins at le Tour for the Manxman this year.
Sagan’s fate was sealed after the race jury ruled he had caused Mark Cavendish to crash in the finale of today’s Stage 4 in Vittel.
The Bora-Hansgrohe rider, winner of yesterday’s Stage 2 and second to Arnaud Demare of FDJ today, was a red-hot favourite to win the green jersey for a record-equialling sixth time in a row.
Initially, the race jury imposed a 30-second time penalty on the Slovak and docked him 80 points in the points classification.
But after continuing to study video footage, they later announced: “We’ve decided to disqualify Peter Sagan from the Tour de France 2017,”
Cavendish’s close friend – and former sports director at HTC-Columbia and Omega Pharma-Quick Step – Rolf Aldag had earlier called for Sagan to be excluded from the race.
Time to step up #UCI. This was not a race accident. Violence. Hard to DQ a world champion from #letour, but needs to be done.
— Rolf Aldag (@RolfAldag) July 4, 2017
Sorry, badly explained. Crash isn’t the problem. Elbow into face=violence= out=correct. Renshaw headbutting 2010= violence= out= correct pic.twitter.com/oBWEgRhelt
— Rolf Aldag (@RolfAldag) July 4, 2017
42 thoughts on “Mark Cavendish out of Tour de France, Peter Sagan disqualified”
So does he get the Most
So does he get the Most Agressive Rider award instead of Van Keirsbulck ?
fukawitribe wrote:
Ha! It seemed a boring stage so at least there is a talking point from the finale.
IMO, a DQ may end up being an over-reaction but Cavendish was entitled to follow Demare’s wheel and Sagan’s movement was aggressive in itself. The more times I see it the more intentional the elbow looks, so I guess a DQ makes sense as a plausible reprimand – but either way it was downright stupid.
It’s not lost on me that Cavendish has been guilty of some pretty eggy moves in the finale before too, though.
Props to ASO for having the guts to boot out the world champion and star of the sport if they felt it was justified, often you see sporting bodies back away from decisions like this.
Goldfever4 wrote:
exactly look at F1s Vettel “apology”, it is the kind of decision everyone sits up and will take notice of in the peloton thats for sure..
fukawitribe wrote:
I actually burst out laughing, thanks for that 🙂
All those years of Cav
All those years of Cav causing others to crash and Sagan gets the full brunt of repercussions today. What a joke.
Jamminatrix wrote:
Reminded me of Cav in Harrogate on Matthews. He apologised then and probably only spared ejection by not actually continuing.
It seems like a case of
It seems like a case of carelessness rather than maliciousness, on Sagan’s part, and he wasn’t the only one with his head down cutting across other people’s lines. So disqualification could be seen as a bit on the harsh side. But better that than the sort of farce that Formula 1 has become.
Cav was going down before
Cav was going down before sagans elbow came out in a fairness.
Bit of karma for cav though
Must say, probably the most
Must say, probably the most deliberate aggressive move I’ve ever seen on the Tour. On first viewing from the TV coverage it looks bad, but that’s spinting, but the overhead stills show that there was no need to be that close to Cav looking at the space to Sagan’s left. Good call from the judges, if you are going to take someone out deliberately you may be DQ’d.
cbrndc wrote:
I really don’t think Sagan took Cav out on purpose. I would stake next week’s wages on that. Sagan’s a really top sportsman. When you look at all the different angles I’m pretty sure Sagan’s elbow was 2 things, closing a door on cav, and trying to stay upright because it seems to me Cav had already connected with Sagan’s bike putting him off balance
cbrndc wrote:
If that’s the most aggressive move you’ve seen you might want to go back only a few years and watch McEwen, O’grady, Dean, Renshaw et al, and then back further to Abdujaparov. Cippo was a bit of a fan of an elbow, knee or trailing toga as well
madcarew wrote:
Yeah, sounds like someone who started watching the Tour in about 2012.
Jackson wrote:
Try the Kelly vs. Vanderaerden battles in the 80s
Huw Watkins wrote:
You all know nothing. Me and my brother up Duke’d Avenue in the 70s was brutal.
cbrndc wrote:
The elbow comes out after Cavendish had started falling. The DQ seems massively over the top, because it wasn’t the elbow that caused the crash.
I’m not sure- everything
I’m not sure- everything looks much worse in super slo-mo or stills. In realtime it looks much less deliberate. David Millar’s immediate reaction ITV4 seemed to be that Cav was going for a gap that wasn’t really there. (Had to leave as soon as the stage finished, so don’t know what he thought after a few more viewings)?
Seems excessive to me and the
Seems excessive to me and the TDF will be less exciting without him.
Cav had a clean lead out with
Cav had a clean lead out with two riders up front, but allowed himself to slip back into a bunch. That would have never happened in the HTC days. Far too often he is trying to come through a scrum of 6/7 riders instead of hitting the last 250 with only 2/3 to beat. I knew before watching the video that he had a crash, but I was thinking, why did he let himself get boxed in again? It has happened all too often. Sadly this is just a sign that he is no longer at the top table and left himself vulnerable to incidents. He may be better as a big fish in a little pond, it works for older footballer.
As for Sagan, well it was dramatic and the body language is what got his thrown out, but throwing his weight around is what has got him so many wins of late and what got Cav wins 5 years ago. Cav, having caused a few himself; he will have to mentally write it off as ‘racing.’ Hopefully as S is not a true sprinter he won’t have the crashes Cav has had as I think his career has been curtained by injuries and he might not return to the front line after this.
TL/DW: Cav put himself in a vulnerable place, Sagan was clumsy. Oh controversial.
Bonus controversy; I am sure I saw someone ride right over Cav’s head straight after (helmet debate anyone?)
Leviathan wrote:
He had a clean lead out of two riders but at 1.5K. There was no way that they could get him to 250m at a decent pace – EBH would have had to do 1k at 65kph to give Renshaw a chance of leading him out from 500m. Seeing this was impossible Cav sat up to make his opponents do some work – either come round him and give him a wheel or let EBH and Renshaw ride away for the win. He then took a very smart wheel in Demare before this incident – I think he showed real racecraft before the crash.
Also sprinting has evolved in the last ten years. The reason HTC were so dominant was that they didn’t really have any other proper trains to compete with. Now there are four or five sprinters teams with big trains meaning that there are far more riders at the sharp end. Because of this you don’t often see a rider winning from a full train lead out anymore – often trains are sacrificed in the last few K’s and then the sprinters surf the wheels for a leadout.
Leviathan wrote:
No. Watch the video again – one rider goes over his wheel and another over his torso and left arm. Body armour debate maybe, but not helmet.
Sagan knew Cav was coming up
Sagan knew Cav was coming up and deliberately kept on veering to his right (after initial shenanigans) instead of following Demare’s wheel which there was plenty of space to do so. he had no real reason to go that far to the right (unless it was to deliberately block a rider) least of all put another rider right into the barrier. at the last second Cav leans left to try to pursuade Sagan from chopping him into the barriers and Sagan gives him the elbow as the final ‘coup de grace’.
sagan stated he didn’t know Cav was there then changed his mind to say he did so clearly a deliberate action to block him off when there was no need to.
great decision by the race organisers and when you consider a rider was recently DQ’d for putting a hand on the backside of another in their team in a team TT it’s certainly not outside the bounds of the rules or previous actions in sprints or otherwise so really they needed to DQ him for this and the earlier crash he caused that meant Thomas came off so they aren’t showing favouritism to certain riders.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
You can apply all that commentary when you watch it in slo-mo. In real time, though??
Well Cavendish was very
Well Cavendish was very diplomatic about it all.
Sucks to have two big names out already though.
Doubly dismayed: I’ll miss
Doubly dismayed: I’ll miss Sagan’s hugely entertaining presence, plus he’s in my fantasy team (as well as everybody else’s).
But then he did dust up our man Cav, so … colour me conflicted.
Certainly a lot less
Certainly a lot less deliberate than Cavendish taking out 3 riders in the Olympics. It seems racing incident sprinting is sprinting cave was behind Sagan who dove into the gap ahead of Cavendish, Cavendish had no where to go so should have sat up instead dived in further into the barrier. Are they going to DQ Froome next for the next time he sticks his elbows out??
Cavendish out of racing condition and desperate to prove himself??
Shame for the tour really maybe even he should have just been relegated or time penalty??
I like Demare but this smacks
I like Demare but this smacks of a bit of a French stitch-up to give him a shot at wearing green into Paris.
Having seen it, replays
Having seen it, replays/overheads, I thought it was a bit harsh for Sagan to be DQ’d. Cav didn’t have anywhere to go. The elbow moving outwards does look to me to be after Cav was heading for the barriers. Clearly does not look good.
Sounds like a bad injury, hope he recovers well.
Looks like he’s p*ssed off Andre Greipel as well yesterday & today
https://youtu.be/WO0xKkDUy1U
I cheered for Peter Sagan and
I cheered for Peter Sagan and also Cav but this time, he [Sagan] overdo it
Its not necessary that aggressive block all the way to right like that and what the heck? elbow strike? ….. poor him that terrible mistake and Cav broke his right arm
Hope he learn from a mistake and for Cav, I wish him well
There’s no way Sagan caused
There’s no way Sagan caused that crash unless you think Cav was going to win the stage cycling on his side. Cav’s bike is already half way over when the elbow comes out. Idiotic decision by the officials. Even worse is Cav’s team management calling it violence. FFS. Bora should pull their whole team in protest. This isn’t a fair race.
This was the second crash
This was the second crash caused by Sagan in a matter of a few hundred metres: it started with him bowling through two FDJ riders, one of which tipped into the main peloton and took out the yellow jersey. An incident which itself deserves sanction.
Joining the front group he then became involved in the second incident, framed by two trees which block our helicopter view. From the initial frontal footage, it looks very tight in there. As they come in, Cavendish looked to have Demare’s wheel. Demare then swerves to the left, at which point Cavendish loses his wheel, causing a gap visible on the helicopter view.
With Demare’s swerve left, Sagan is now closest to Demare’s wheel and he has half a bike on Cavendish who leans left towards Sagan, with no contact at this point as they head under the first tree.
Cavendish holds his line, however, Sagan continues to come right even though he has now lost Demare’s wheel as Demare swerves left cutting between two riders. Another sanctionable incident?
With Demare’s move left, Sagan has clear road ahead of him yet continues right cutting Cavendish off – he’s still half a bike length ahead. As they emerge from under the second tree Sagan then flips out his elbow in what looks like the damning move. Some have pointed out that this happens after Cavendish crashes, but it’s all part of the same move: the final elbow shrug.
Chris Hayes wrote:
…all of which ^^^ in real time happened in 2.5 seconds. Super-slo-mo has a lot to answer for…
The elbow is irrelevant. Came
The elbow is irrelevant. Came after the ‘incident’ to allow PS to stay upright – balancing reflex.
Whether PS should have come across on to AD’s wheel, thereby forcing MC into the barrier is another matter altogether.
It seemed a bit clumsy by
It seemed a bit clumsy by Sagan, I don’t think he did anything deliberate, yes the elbow came out, but I think that was a bit of a result of trying to balance against Cav.
A shame to see both riders out, but hopefully it’ll make one or two of the other sprinters think about what they’re doing, unfortunately the whole group of them seemed to drift right across the road (mostly following Demare it seems) Gripel was also lucky not to come down looking at how he got tangled up in the bunch. I hope degenkolb is ok, haven’t heard about him after he went over the top of Cav.
Totally Cav’s fault
Totally Cav’s fault
Boss Hogg wrote:
You missed the actual cause of the crash which is Sagan riding across Cav’s line on to Demare’s wheel, leaving Cav with nowhere to go. The elbow was not the cause – the crash was caused well before your clip starts.
jasecd wrote:
hmmm…
Whilst it doesn’t look like
Whilst it doesn’t look like it, I wouldn’t be surprised if that elbow made contact.
However, rather than the elbow itself, its the movement behind the elbow swing that sent Cav flying towards the barriers.
Cav gets closed out… make no mistake around that. Sagan will have known exactly where Cav was; I have done enough big bunch gallops to know there is no chance Sagan was not fully aware that he was shutting the door on Cav.
Cav had every right to be going for the line he was on. He was on Demare’s wheel when Demare went, he had the momentum and was traveling a lot fast than Sagan. Sagan chose to take that line off Cav.
At that point Cavendish had no course of action… he couldn’t have braked out of it if he had tried, the gap was closed too quickly, the speed difference between them too great.
Cav had one option, which was to lean on Sagan… which he did.
Sagan, on being leaned on, made a split second decision… he could have yielded, gone ‘soft’ and let Cav have a couple of inches. Its something that happens in the bunch all the time. You feel someone press on you and you give them an inch… sometimes you don’t give an inch… depends.
Sagan didn’t give Mark any space, instead he instinctively pushed back hard. He turned his body weight into Cav, which in turn sent Mark flying. Its a deliberate move.
I am sure this was not a deliberate move to knock Mark off as such, but it was a ‘fcuk off’ body check…. an instinctive movement. It was Sagans response to the lean that sent Mark flying. I’d suggest Sagan underestimated Cav’s speed, which ultimately caused the crash.
From a comms perspective. I’d have looked at the way Cav was chopped off, and the body check, my conclusion would be that Sagan caused the situation, and then was responsible for the crash, and I’d have sanctioned. I probably wouldn’t have Dq’d though.
I believe the very visible elbow which implied intent is what caused the DQ.
Sagan has a track record of bodychecking riders… whilst each event can only be judged on itself, I am sure this track record will have played a part in the comms deciding this needed more significant punishment.
Close pass of the day 13 –
Close pass of the day 13 – Peter Sagan on Mark Cavendish!
I’m still reeling about that
I’m still reeling about that sprint after watching on TV last night!
Good report andfootage on velo news about this today. Regardless of who started what when where, on the slow mo footage head on it’s Cav’s shoulder who looks to make first contact with Sagan, then it’s cav’s foot unclipped ready for a crash before the elbow came out.
Regardless I think the DQ is wrong here, it was a crazy sprint from the moment it went off and I’m not sure many or any of those riders should come out of it clean.
If there’s one thing we can say about the 2017 TdF.. it’s not had a boring start! Reminds me of a couple of years ago when all the GC contenders and yellow jerseys crashed and crashed and crashed again until only Vince Nibbles was left to take the victory.
FWIW, my view using the below
FWIW, my view using the below clips:
If you pause at 32s and go frame by frame (hold onto the white blob with your mouse), you can see Sagan and Cav are still on their separate lines, but Demare is beginning to deviate. His is the first move.
It’s difficult to see Demare’s back wheel due to shadow, but it looks like his and Sagan’s front wheel (obstructed, but approximately where his head is) are overlapping.
A couple of frames later, just before the trees, Demare is further over towards Sagan and their wheels could still be overlapping. If they are not, there’s not much in it. Sagan is still straight, Cav is leaning slightly in to Sagan.
While they’re under tree cover, you can see Demare’s shadow is moving across to the left. (Though, don’t get his bike confused with its shadow.) Sagan’s left elbow comes out.
Out of the trees (34s), Demare has kicked and continued his deviation, and almost taken out Bouhanni.
Sagan never appears to try to get on Demare’s wheel. Demare was moving across before then – you can see it from the change in the angle of his body and bike. Sagan would have had to steer left, not right. Instead, it looks like he was trying to avoid it by steering right.
Interestingly, the shape of Bouhanni’s body after Demare nearly takes out his front wheel is almost identical to that of Sagan’s a few seconds earlier. Even with an elbow coming out, though admittedly not as noticeably.
Amazed Bouhani didn’t protest
Amazed Bouhani didn’t protest that. He did incredibly well to stay upright given the switch he got from Demare.
JohnnyRemo wrote:
He did, he said he had to break when Demare cut across him, otherwise he would have come down too
“It was a nervous sprint. I was in the ideal position in the final kilometres and I knew the finish by heart. But at 150 metres from the line, as I was on the wheel of Alexander Kristoff, Arnaud Demare cut me up and I touched his back wheel,”
“At that moment it was over. If I didn’t break, I’d have fallen.”