Peter Sagan was just kicked out of the Tour de France.
It happened on Tuesday after the double road world champion was involved in a nasty crash on the race’s fourth stage that sent star British sprinter Mark Cavendish into the crowd barriers and onto the ground at high speed.
The official announcement came from the Tour jury after 7 p.m. local time, about an hour and a half after the stage finished.
Cavendish was taken to the hospital with shoulder and finger injuries after crashing, AFP reported. It is unclear if he will start Wednesday’s fourth stage.
Watch the crash below:
“We’ve decided to disqualify Peter Sagan from the Tour de France 2017 as he endangered some of his colleagues seriously in the final metres of the sprint which happened in Vittel,” said the president of the race commission, Philippe Marien. “We will apply article 12.104 of the rules of the UCI … in which case commissaires (the race jury) can decide to enforce a judgment to disqualify a rider.”
It all happened after a quiet day of racing that eventually saw the sprinters’ teams setting up their fast men for the finale. As the leaders raced for the line at speeds approaching 40 mph, Cavendish tried to come around Sagan but was knocked into the barriers and onto the ground.
Social media blew up on the news that Sagan was being disqualified from the race.
Some, including former pro cycling sprinters, didn’t see wrong in his actions.
Cavendish said Sagan had to explain his actions, AFP reported.
“I was just following Demare round and then Sagan just came over,” he said. “I get on with Peter well but I don’t get it. If he came across it’s one thing, but the elbow? I’m not a fan of him putting his elbow in like that. I get on with Peter a crash is a crash, but I’d just like to know about the elbow.”
Cavendish’s sports director at Dimension Data, Roger Hammond, told journalists: “If I was Sagan, I’d apologize for that.” Fellow sprinter Andre Greipel of Germany accused Sagan of doing the same thing to him the previous day.
“Yesterday it was the same thing in the intermediate sprint he gave an elbow to Andre,” Greipel’s Lotto-Soudal team manager Marc Sergeant told Eurosport.
To make matters worse, two trailing riders could not avoid Cavendish and went over the fallen rider as Frenchman Arnaud Démare crossed the line first to win his first-ever stage at the Tour.
Sagan won the past two road world championships and is widely regarded as the most talented rider of his generation who can win many kinds of races. He is a multiple Tour-stage winner and five-time winner of the Tour’s green jersey, which is awarded to the race’s most consistent daily finisher.
Cavendish has won the most stages in the Tour — 30 so far — after Eddy Merckx, who won 34.
“Cav” is considered to be one of the sport’s greatest all-time spinters.
