By now, you’ve seen the many video clips of the Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe)/Mark Cavendish (Dimension Data) crash. At least from social media feeds, it seems the cycling world is pretty supportive of Sagan and think his disqualification was too harsh. Unfortunately, we won’t see the popular Slovakian world champion for the rest of the tour, but there is more to the story than these two riders.
Back up a few hundred meters in the race, and there are three lanes of riders developing. On the left, you have Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Soudal) and his teammate Andre Greipel leading the way. In the center and a little further back, Alexander Kristoff (Katusha-Alpecin), Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) and Sagan just behind. On the right and further back, Arnaud Demare (FDJ) was followed by Cavendish.
The Kristoff line begins to overtake Roelandts and Greipel up the center and Greipel looks as though he moves right to grab Kristoff’s wheel, making contact with Bouhanni. Bouhanni is moved right, but quickly comes back left to stay on Kristoff’s wheel. Sagan also followed that movement right. In the mean time, Demare is coming around Sagan and is forced to the right. Cavendish goes to follow Demare’s wheel to get around to the right. A gap opens between Bouhanni and Sagan, and Sagan seems to decide to follow Demare’s wheel. Before he can though, Demare shoots left to find open road, though he still had his lane between Kristoff and the right barrier. In the process, Demare nearly takes off Bouhanni’s front wheel and causes him to stop sprinting and catch himself from crashing. A split second later, Cavendish tries to thread the needle between Sagan and the right barrier and the initial contact is made. Cavendish leans against Sagan before crashing into the barrier.
Let’s backtrack again, and look at things from a different perspective. Instead of looking at the finale as a whole, let’s examine each incident in progression and how it would have possibly ended.
Incident #1 – Greipel and Bouhanni
Taking everyone else away, let’s look at Greipel and Bouhanni. Greipel and Bouhanni make contact behind Kristoff as Greipel tries to force Bouhanni off Kristoff’s wheel. Bouhanni gets bumped off his line enough to affect his sprint, but does not crash. If those three riders continued to sprint and finish with Bouhanni finishing in second of third, Cofidis might have protested Greipel’s contact with Bouhanni, which could have resulted in a fine and maybe a relegation to the back of the lead group. While it might have hurt any of Greipel’s hopes for the green jersey, it would not have been a serious issue.
Incident #2 – Bouhanni and Demare
Now, let’s look at Bouhanni, Greipel, Demare, and Kristoff, regardless of anyone else behind. Kristoff is leading Bouhanni, who had a small gap open between the two of them after he was bumped by Greipel and just regained his line. Instead of holding his line and passing Kristoff on his right between the barrier, Demare shoots left and overlaps his rear wheel with Bouhanni’s front wheel. Bouhanni is able to keep his bike upright as Demare sprints off, but again is forced to stop sprinting. Greipel is forced a little to the left, but nothing major. It’s pretty safe to say that Demare wins and Kristoff follows behind for second. Again, Cofidis could possibly protest Demare’s movement left as not holding his line and is dangerous, but most likely a fine and possible relegation would have occurred.
Had Cavendish and Sagan not made contact resulting in Cavendish’s crash and broken shoulder blade, the headlines could be very different. Unfortunately, we are left with two top sprinters no longer in the race and disappointment of not seeing if Sagan can claim his 6th straight green jersey or if Cavendish can claim enough wins to become the new record holder of stage wins.
So, does Sagan deserve to be DQ’d and removed from the Tour? Leave your comment below letting us know what you think.
Heckling Editor, Image Taker, Crash Test Dummy, and Beard Master at Bikeworldnews.com
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