World champion Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) says that he accepts the decision of the Tour de France race jury to disqualify him from the race, but maintains that he did nothing wrong to cause the crash that forced Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) to abandon.

Speaking to the press outside his hotel in Vittel after the UCI had rejected his team’s right to appeal against the decision of the race jury, Sagan said that he had to accept the decision of the commissaires.

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“Today I can just accept the decision of the jury,” Sagan told reporters. “But for sure I don’t agree with them because I think I didn’t do anything wrong in the sprint.

“It is very bad that Mark fell down and it is important that he can recover well. I’m sorry for that.

“But it was a crazy sprint – it wasn’t the first one like that and it won’t be the last one like that. I wish Mark a good recovery.”

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The crash with around 250m to go on stage four to Vittel left Cavendish with a broken shoulder blade and a wound to his hand, forcing him to abandon the race overnight.

Sagan is the first rider to be disqualified from the Tour de France for an offence not connected to doping since Cavendish’s lead-out man Mark Renshaw was thrown out for headbutting Julian Dean in a sprint finish in 2010.