Mark Cavendish: Tour de France crash ‘could have been worse’

British sprint star Mark Cavendish philosophical over Tour de France exit as a result of crash
Gregor Brown

Mark Cavendish looked at the bright side this morning after abandoning the Tour de France due to a crash on Saturday in Harrogate.

“It’s disappointed, but things could be worse,” Cavendish said at the Omega Pharma-QuickStep team’s bus in York. “I don’t think I’m too bad, I’ll come back in two weeks. We have an incredibility strong team: Tony Martin, Niki Terpstra, Matteo Trentin, Jan Bakelants. I’ll be devastated to miss the success that they’ll have.”

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The 29-year-old of team Omega Pharma crashed with Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) in the final 250 metres of yesterday’s stage. An initial race medical report said that he dislocated his collarbone and the team said that it was unsure of him starting Sunday’s second stage.

“Mark separated his AC joint and that’s quite a serious injury,” said team doctor, Helge Riepenhof explained. “All the ligaments in his AC joint are ruptured and there’s no way for him to start today. He will have scans and then decide if surgery tomorrow or not.”

“I normally bounce well when I crash, when I was on the floor yesterday, I knew something was wrong. The first time in my career I knew something was wrong,” Cavendish continued. “I wanted to cross the line in Harrogate for the fans, but I couldn’t hold my bars.

“I took my skinsuit off and knew there’s something wrong with my shoulder because it was sticking out a bit like it shouldn’t. I was in a lot of pain. I held a bit of optimism that maybe it was swelling and it’d go down, but it was worse this morning. I’m gutted, disappointed, but I knew it could be worst.”

Cavendish spoke to Gerrans briefly at the finish and on the telephone later in the evening. “I apologised, I hope he’s OK for today. It’s a good stage for him… It was my fault at the end of the day.”