Tour de France: Cavendish pipped in sprint

Marcel Kittel of Germany edges home ahead of Mark Cavendish and green jersey holder Peter Sagan. Picture: AP

In the past two days, Cavendish has been sprayed with urine by a spectator and had a Dutch rival Tom Veelers calling for his disqualification, but he looked ready to put all that behind him as his Omega Pharma-Quick Step team delivered him to the front on the final stretch in Tours.

The last thing he needed to see was Veelers’ team-mate Kittel steaming past but Cavendish could only look on in surprise as the German collected his third stage win of the Tour.

“When you get beaten like that you can look at it over and over again, but I’m just disappointed that I let down my team-mates,” Cavendish said.

“At the end of the day I didn’t do anything wrong, my team didn’t do anything wrong. We were beaten by a better guy.”

Cavendish had already described Kittel as “the real deal” after watching the 25-year-old take the yellow jersey on the opening day and follow it up with victory on stage 10 to Saint-Malo – just as Cavendish was colliding with Veelers behind.

But the threat Kittel poses to Cavendish’s status as the best sprinter in the world had never been seen so clearly as when he came from a bike-and-a-half’s length down to claim victory.

“I was beaten and that was it,” said Cavendish. “The team did everything perfectly, it was spot on today, it was a good duel between my team and (Argos-Shimano), but eventually he was just faster than me.

“I said the other day: he’s the next big thing. I think he’s the next superstar sprinter. He’s got his three stages now and I can tell you from experience it’s not easy.”

Peter Sagan, who leads Cavendish by 96 points in the battle for the green jersey, crossed in third, while Chris Froome was in close attendance in the yellow jersey as he retained his three minute and 25 second lead in the general classification.

Cavendish had been looking in feisty mood, and for the first time in this Tour he led his green jersey rivals through the intermediate sprint, sixth overall as a five-man breakaway had gone up the road early on.

But the wait goes on for the 28-year-old to record his 25th career Tour stage win, which will put him joint third all-time with Andre Leducq when it comes.

It had been expected to happen long before now, but Cavendish’s Tour has turned into a series of disappointments.

He hoped for yellow on the opening day in Bastia, but was caught behind a crash amid the chaos caused by Orica GreenEdge’s errant team bus, and another crash on stage six prevented him from following up his only victory so far this year, on stage five to Marseille.

Saint-Malo presented another opportunity, but he collided with Veelers – who had just delivered Kittel to the front – and lost all momentum in the final 100 metres.

To top it all, he suffered the indignity of being sprayed with urine during yesterday’s time trial to Mont-Saint-Michel as fans blamed him for the collision even after race officials had ruled in his favour.

Cavendish said: “It’s not a nice thing to happen but in cycling you get so close to the spectators. I enjoy that really because there was an incredible amount of British support there and Manx flags. I didn’t know there were that many people on the island.

“It’s okay, we had an incredible night last night after we had three people in the top ten (in the time trial) so in the end it was a nice stage.”

Kittel dedicated his win to Veelers, while the Boxmeer Criterium, a lucrative one-day event in Holland held immediately after the Tour, spotted an opportunity for some free publicity by saying Cavendish would not be welcome – a move denounced by Cavendish’s team manager Patrick Lefevere as “classless”.

British Cycling supremo Sir Dave Brailsford, Cavendish’s former boss at Team Sky, backed the Manxman to bounce back and remind everyone why he is the best in the business.

“What we shouldn’t forget is a bit of perspective and Mark Cavendish has delivered, more often and more times in more races than any other sprinter,” he said. “When you step back and look at the entirety of his career it’s absolutely phenomenal what that lad’s achieved.”While Froome safely came through another day he lost a key deputy as Edvald Boasson Hagen was forced to withdraw.

The Norwegian went over his handlebars in a major pile-up and Team Sky last night confirmed he is out of the race with broken right scapula.