Peter Sagan (Bora-hansgrohe) has been disqualified from the Tour de France today for what the commissaires panel described as having ‘endangered seriously several other riders including Mark Cavendish in the final meters of the sprint.’

The disqualification was in relation to a crash in the closing metres where Cavendish was riding up the inside of Sagan against the barriers in the sprint to the line.

Sagan then stuck his right elbow out towards the Manxman with Cavendish crashing to the ground. John Degenkolb (Trek-Segafredo) and Ben Swift (UAE Emirates) also crashed in the incident.

After the end of the stage, Sagan made his way towards the Dimension Data bus to apologise to Cavendish for causing the crash.

The news of the disqualification was announced over an hour after the end of the stage, after Sagan had initially been given a 30-second penalty and docked points in the green jersey competition. However, after further analysis of footage of the crash, the commissaires panel decided to disqualify Sagan.

“We decided to disqualify Peter Sagan from the 2017 Tour de France because he endangered seriously several other riders including Mark Cavendish in the final meters of the sprint which happened in Vittel”, president commissaire Philippe Mariën stated. “We apply article 12.104 of the UCI regulations which allow us to disqualify a rider.”

Mark Cavendish spoke about the extent of his injuries afterwards and also about the crash itself.

“I don’t know, I gotta get it looked at,” Cavendish said. “I have to speak with Peter. Injury-wise I’m going to go and get it checked out. I will definitely need stitches in this finger, it’s bleeding a lot. With the shoulder, it might be something to do with a previous injury, it’s sat backwards so I’m not sure if I’ve done something to the ligament. I’m not a doctor but from the feelings I’m not optimistic.”

“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.”

The stage meanwhile was won by Arnaud Démare. The FDJ rider finished ahead of Sagan and Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) becoming the first Frenchman to win a bunch sprint of the Tour de France since Jimmy Casper in Strasbourg in 2006. Geraint Thomas came home safely to retain the yellow jersey.

34 COMMENTS

  1. Pathetic, outrageous. The reckless Cav, who tried to dive through a non-existent gap along the barriers thus causing the crash, should be given a massive fine to go along with his busted collar bone.

  2. First I cheer for Lotto Jumbo because they are a Bianchi team. That being said I have watched the replay multiple times slowed down and here is what I see. Chavendish was trying to make a gap where there was none. If you look real close you can see his pedals go into Sagans and he goes down as Sagan shifts his weight and elbow out to the right to maintain balance. Chavendish was in a bad position and tried to push through and crashed. I see no malicious intent just bad judgement which happens in the heat of the moment of racing.

  3. Cavendish instigated his own fall, he misjudged the gap and was doomed as a result way before Sagan even defended his own road space. The flick of the elbow looks bad but it doesn’t deserve a disqualification imo,

  4. This is the second time in the 2017 TDF where it appears that Sagan intentionally left his line to shoulder or elbow another rider during a sprint. He shouldered Greipel during the midrace sprint in stage 3, which left Greiple shaking his head. Sagan appears to apologize each time, after he takes the points. I have been a Sagan fan, but am disappointed in his conduct this year. It’s one thing to hold your line and even lean somewhat. Howevver, when one looks at both events, one can see the intent. If someone is such a fan that they can’t see the obvious, so be it. This was not a knee jerk but the last straw.

  5. Sagan is clearly throwing an elbow, there’s no way you can miss that. However, it doesn’t look like he made contact with it and i wouldn’t even contribute that to the crash at all, a complete non factor.

    • Cav has tried this many, many times. Sometimes it works for him, sometimes it doesn’t and he crashes. He was on his way down before Sagan’s elbow came up. I can’t tell if Sagan’s elbow even made contact with Cav at any point. Here you can see Cav’s head against Sagan before Sagan’s elbow comes up and if you see the video in slow motion and from the correct angle, Sagan’s left knee comes out to the side as his right arm goes out…that’s a move to keep your balance and keep your bike upright.

    • John Broome of course the ratings will take a hit. My hope is that Sagan tells the TDF to take a flying leap next July. They need him a good deal more than he needs them. He’s awesome in the Classics and there’s always the Giro and the Vuelta if he wants to race for 3 weeks. I’d be interested to see how he would do on the track, too. It’s the only discipline in which he doesn’t have a World Championship to his credit. However, track is also quite political. Look what Cav got away with at the Olympics.

  6. World Champion or not, there is no room for that type of riding from Sagan, or anyone else in the Tour. Congrats to the UCI and Tour de France jury for having the balls to stand up and make the right call. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out of France Peter Sagan.

Leave a Reply to Daniel Callahan Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here