LA PLANCHE DES BELLES FILLES, France (VN) — Mark Cavendish will turn his attention to the Tour of Britain and the world championship road race in Norway, says team Dimension Data after he abandoned the Tour de France with a broken shoulder blade Tuesday.
Cavendish fell in an incident with Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the final 150 meters of stage 4 to Vittel on Tuesday. Sagan’s move led to his disqualification. Cavendish could not continue either with his arm in a sling.
“The Tour of Britain and world championships,” Dimension Data team principal Douglas Ryder told VeloNews when asked what Cavendish could race next.
Cavendish would likely race for stages in the Tour of Britain, September 3-10, and in Norway, September 24, a second world title on what some say is a hilly course suited to hard men like Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing).
“I think he is looking at the world championships thinking he’s been climbing pretty well. It’s a hard circuit, but if he stays lean like he is and focused on his build up … He feels really good on the bike. He is in a good space mentally. So, never say never.
“He will really try to end the season on the high, he feels like he owes it to himself.”
Cavendish fought to recover from glandular fever to simply race the Tour de France. He called it a victory just to be on the start line in Düsseldorf on Saturday.
He had been out for over two months, between racing the Milano-Sanremo and the Tour of Slovenia and went through a long and slow development. On the first bunch sprint, he showed his huge progress with a fourth place. In the second, in Vittel, disaster struck.
Ryder called for Sagan’s disqualification immediately after the stage. He said his move toward Cavendish was “ridiculous” but wanted to review the footage better. Overnight, critics said that Sagan should have stayed in the race.
“If you take Mark and Peter out of it, had it happened to two other riders, what would the jury decide? Potentially, it would be the same,” Ryder said. “There are mixed feelings in the peloton about it, but there was a clear deviation.
“Did Mark go on the side and try to take a chance where there was no gap? Of course not, there was a massive gap of two meters when he was going, and then it closed and closed, and the elbow closed it even more.
“The jury needs to make their call and look at it transparently and be consistent. That’s why they are here. Is it sad that Mark is out with a broken shoulder, yes, they are both out. Is it good for anyone? No, for sure, not.”
“There’s always going to be opinion on Peter. He’s a great person for the sport,” Cavendish said this morning. “What you have to do here is take away the riders involved, take away the jerseys involved and look at what happened. And that’s why we have a jury to make decisions.
“If I’m honest it takes a lot of courage, a lot of balls to eliminate the world champion from the Tour de France, and I commend the jury on taking a decision that wasn’t based on influences from social media or outside.”
Dimension Data must continue and will do so with that same fighting spirit it showed when it debuted in 2015 on a wildcard invitation. Then, it struggled to race, but when it did so, Steve Cummings won a stage for Africa’s first professional team on Nelson Mandela Day.
“There was so much more possible [with Cavendish], but now they have such confidence that they are in good shape. So if we rally around certain individuals, then we can stand up high and win,” he added.
“We can race like two years ago, with no expectations, and when the guys feel good, they go. We will try to do something.”
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