Tour de France: Mark Cavendish 'really upset and angry' with demotion for irregular sprint on Stage 12
Published 11/07/2024 at 22:12 GMT+1
Mark Cavendish, who celebrated his 35th Tour de France stage win earlier in the race, suffered disappointment in Stage 12 on Thursday. He was unable to reel in Biniam Girmay on the run to the line and he was later demoted from fifth to 68th for an irregular sprint. Stream the Tour de France live on discovery+
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Mark Cavendish suffered disappointment at the finish of Stage 12, and salt was rubbed into his wounds when he was demoted for an irregular sprint.
Cavendish was surfing wheels in the final kilometre of the stage and got himself onto the tail of Biniam Girmay (Intermarche-Wanty), who went on to win his third stage of the Tour de France.
The Manxman pulled out of Girmay’s wheel in the final 100m, but in swinging out he impeded Bryan Coquard.
Race officials took a dim view of Cavendish’s manoeuvre and demoted him from fifth to 68th.
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Cavendish’s Astana Qazaqstan boss Mark Renshaw relayed the Brit’s disappointment with the decision.
"We are obviously very disappointed,” Renshaw said in an interview with ITV. “In that sprint, we think it was a solid, earned fifth place from Cavendish.
“There were two decisions in the commissaires' panel that was taken. One of them affects us, and Cavendish is really upset with this decision, as I am, as the team because we thought it was a hard-fought place, and there are many reasons why for that sprint.”
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Renshaw felt Cavendish had little option other than to make the move he did due to another rider coming back to him.
“If we really analyse this move and break down this 50 metres, we can see that [Daniel] McLay is leading out [Arnaud] Demare," Renshaw said. "If you stack it up against the white line you can see that he is parallel about .8 of a metre to the right of the white line. He finishes his lead-out, and he moves to the left. My estimate is about 1.5 metres; he moves to the left and stops pedalling.
"I think this move by McLay, who completely stops pedalling, he probably deserves more of a sanction than Cavendish deserves. Especially I [know], as a lead-out man, if you stop pedalling in a sprint like this, there will be a reaction. The reaction to that move by McLay stopping pedalling was Cavendish deviating to the left, also with [Bryan] Coquard hard on the wheel.
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“I think with both riders, Cav and Coquard committed to jumping to the left. So, you've got a rider like McLay, who stops pedalling at 70km/h, Cav in the same moment, has already committed to jumping to the left, and that's the reaction from that action.
"He's really upset and angry about the decision because he believes it was unfair, and that was an action from McLay coming back."
Demare (Arkea-B&B Hotels) was demoted from third place to 67th for squeezing Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) towards the barriers late in the stage.
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