Mark Cavendish’s hopes of a record 35th Tour de France stage win are over after the sprinter was forced to abandon the race after a crash.
Cavendish, who has announced his intention to retire at the end of the season, had arrived at his farewell Tour hoping to move clear of the great Eddy Merckx.
But an apparent broken collarbone, suffered in an innocuous-looking crash on Stage Eight from Libourne to Limoges, left Cavendish writhing in pain, with footage showing the Manxman distraught in the back of an ambulance after his abandonment was confirmed.
The 38-year-old had come agonisingly close to the record-breaking victory a day earlier in Bordeaux, hosting a stage finish for the first time since Cavendish won in the city in 2010.
The British fastman had been perfectly placed entering the final few hundred metres, accelerating beyond Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Jasper Philipsen on the right hand side of the road.
A cruelly timed gearing issue prevented Cavendish fully opening up his sprint, though, allowing Philipsen to roar back past him and secured his third stage of this year’s Tour.
“I was in quite a good position, I looked far back but I was OK in where I wanted to be,” Cavendish said at the finish. “It was a long straight finish and Cees [Bol] had moved me up with good speed in the last K. I was on the right wheels.
“I kicked a little earlier than I would have liked but still about the same as I did in 2010. But once I kicked, started, the gears jumped from 11 to 12 and I had to sit down, the cadence just whacked up, then it goes back to 11.
“I tried to stand up and it went back to the 12 so I had to sit down, there’s nothing you can do except kind of hope.
“I’m bitterly disappointed, majorly disappointed but we keep on trying. Again we saw an improvement out of the boys so we can be positive.”
Barring a reversal of his retirement decision, Cavendish’s Tour career ends on 34 stage wins, level with the brilliant Belgian Merckx.
The “Manx Missile” secured his first win at the race in 2008.
