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It has been confirmed this evening that as a result of the crash in the closing stages of stage 1 at the 2014 Tour de France, Mark Cavendish (Omega- Pharma Quick-Step) will miss the rest of the Tour de France.
He will miss the rest of the race due to a shoulder injury, which he landed quite heavily on when he came off the bike at high speed as the sprint opened in Stage 1, in his mother’s home town of Harrogate.
A spokesman for Omega Pharma Quickstep confirmed this evening AEST that Cavendish would miss the rest of the tour as he had dislocated an AC Joint in his shoulder and there was no way he would be able to ride through the pain.
Cavendish, however did travel to the start of Stage 2 and it is understood he will be talking to the media there.
The crash at the end of Stage 1 was an ugly one, with Cavendish seemingly looking for a gap that wasn’t there and in the process using his head to try and create more room. In the process of using his head to try and get Simon Gerrans (Orica Green-Edge) out of the way his foot hit Gerrans pedal and the two hit the road hard as the stage win disappeared up the road to Marcel Kittel with Peter Sagan coming in second place.
Simon Gerrans however will continue at the Tour after being the more fortunate of the two just suffering some major road rash, however it would seem his ambition of moving into the yellow jersey after tonight’s second and hilly stage now seem dashed unless he can gain a time advantage on nearly everyone in the peloton.
The injury to Cavendish is a major blow for Omega Pharma Quick-step also as they had most of their plans centred around him. Expect them to now try and look after their climber Michal Kwiatkowski and for Mark Renshaw to contest the sprints with a lead out from Allesandro Pettachi. Cavendish would now be expected to take on the Vuelta a Espana later in the season in an attempt to salvage something from his season.