Cavendish: «That's cycling...»
The media scrum of the day took place around the Omega Pharma Quick Step bus, at which Mark Cavendish explained the circumstances of his withdrawal from the Tour de France after his crash in the finale of stage 1 in Harrogate.
“After yesterday's checks, I was hoping that the shoulder would swell down, but it was not the case, unfortunately. That's cycling, that's my job and I'm pretty well paid to do it,” said the winner of 25 Tour stages.
The former world champion wished good luck to his team for the rest of the Tour but his team manager Patrick Lefevere made it clear it would now become difficult: “It changes everything for us as the team was built entirely around him”, he said.
Alessandro Petacchi cannot even be a second choice for the bunch sprints as the veteran Italian suffers from an allergy after being bitten by a bee.
Cavendish crashed in the finale as he was battling his way with Australian champion Simon Gerrans, who also hit the tarmac but started stage 2 to Sheffield.“I'm going to try, but honestly it's going to be difficult,” he said, adding Cavendish had called him the previous night to apologise.
