Mark Cavendish crashed out of what was set to be his final Tour de France on Saturday, ending the sprint legend’s quest to go one better than Eddie Merckx for stage wins.
The 38-year-old British rider got caught up in a crash on a flat section of road seemingly without danger entering the village of La Chapelle-Verlaine about 63km from the finish.
In agony he was taken to a hospital with a broken collarbone as Denmark’s Mads Pedersen went on to win a bunch sprint in Limoges in central France.
Photo: AFP
“I won’t lie, I cried. Everyone in the team is hurting,” Astana Qazaqstan Team sprint adviser Mark Renshaw said.
“Second yesterday, and today, to have this happen to Mark ... it’s hard,” he said.
Widely regarded as cycling’s greatest sprinter, Cavendish came into this year’s Tour level on 34 stage wins with Belgian great Merckx.
Jasper Philipsen had denied him a record 35th stage win on Friday.
On Saturday, former world champion Pedersen won ahead of Belgian duo Philipsen and Wout van Aert.
“It’s sad a legend like him ends his Tour like that,” Trek-Segafredo rider Pedersen said.
“I hoped so bad he’d get his 35th win on the Tour. It’s painful not only for him, but also for so many other people in cycling, riders and fans, everyone,” he added.
Ashen-faced Cavendish remained on the road rolling in pain every time he reached toward his right shoulder before being taken away by ambulance.
Tour de France race director Christian Prudhomme said it was “an emotional day.”
“For a few seconds yesterday we thought he would achieve his goal, and today it’s over,” he said.
“He’s the best sprinter in Tour de France history and he’ll always be welcome here, with or without a bike,” he added.
TITLE CAMPAIGN: The victory sent the Monkeys to the Taiwan Series for the third time in the past four seasons as they seek their first championship since 2019 The stage is set for the Taiwan Series after the Rakuten Monkeys on Monday beat the Uni-President Lions 4-3 in Game 5 of the CPBL Challenger Series in Kaohsiung. The Monkeys, who entered the top of the ninth scoreless, tied the game with a three-run blast by Lin Chih-ping and scored the winning run in the 10th on an RBI single by Lin Li, a three-time batting champion in the CPBL. Both players entered the game as pinch hitters. “The coach told me to stay prepared as a pinch hitter in the later part of the game. My teammates had
The Ministry of Sports on Wednesday night called for the Chinese Taipei Football Association (CTFA) to address issues in Taiwanese soccer after national manager Huang Che-ming on Tuesday resigned following Taiwan’s elimination in AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. Taiwan on Tuesday were thrashed 6-1 by Thailand in their Group D tie at Taipei Municipal Stadium. Taiwan finished with no points, after losing all four of their matches, eliminating them from qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup. Huang made his surprise resignation at a post-match news conference, following three losses since he took over the team from English coach Gary White in August. Huang
HIT AND RUN: Toronto manager John Schneider got his wish that his team ‘find some slug in the air out here,’ as the Blue Jays combined to total 611m of homers Tired in Toronto, the Blue Jays slugged in Seattle. Vladimir Guerrero Jr and George Springer on Wednesday woke up the Jays, as Toronto hit five home runs to rebound from an early deficit, routing the Mariners 13-4 and closing to 2-1 in the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Toronto had 18 hits — all within the first three pitches of each at-bat. “If they give us a first pitch, the pitch that we’re looking for, we’re going to attack and we’re going to be aggressive,” Guerrero said. Seattle starter George Kirby gave up eight of the hits. “I wasn’t really executing when they got
For a second straight day, protests by La Liga players against staging a regular-season game in Miami, Florida, in December were censored or not fully broadcast for television audiences. The television feed of Barcelona’s home game against Girona switched right before kickoff to an exterior view of the stadium, which only showed part of the field from a distance. That impeded home audiences from seeing the teams’ players standing still for the first 15 seconds in opposition to La Liga’s plan to hold the Barcelona-Villarreal game across the Atlantic on Dec. 20. The broadcasts of the initial moments after kickoff of the
RSS