Mark Cavendish had a very difficult day in the Tour de France. He was the first sprinter to get into trouble on the climbs, after which his teammates from Astana Qazaqstan had to take care of him all day.
They finally crossed the finish line in Rimini about 39 minutes after Romain Bardet.
“I was seeing stars, it was so hard,” Cavendish admitted. “It was the heat, it hit a lot of people,” Cavendish said, appearing to have at least partially recovered from his huge effort.
“If you’ve got my body type now, don’t start cycling, because them days are gone,” he said.
“But we know what we’re doing – it doesn’t mean it’s easy. We’re not riding around talking. It was so hard – that was so hard, but we had a plan and we stuck to it. I would have liked to stay one more climb with the peloton, but I was seeing stars, it was so hard.”
“It’s a bit boring but that’s the way cycling has gone,” Cavendish explained. “It makes a nice story but the time limit is not there to put people out of the race, it’s there for when people are sick and injured and carry on.”
