Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) saw his hopes of taking the yellow jersey squandered by a bunch crash on the opening stage of the Tour de France. Cavendish himself was able to avoid going down, though.

“I didn’t crash luckily, I was just behind the crash,” Cavendish said. “The stage wasn’t too bad, not too different from what is normal at the Tour de France. What caused the problems is there was a change in the finish. We heard it on the radio with literally 5km to go that the sprint was in 2km. About a kilometre later when heading to the finish it was just carnage. “

“I think the majority of the favourites for today’s stage were caught up,” Cavendish said. “Luckily I didn’t go down. I was behind it. I’d seen my teammates end up a lot worse off. Tony Martin is in a bit of a state here. I can count myself lucky. It’s not as bad as it could be for me, but my bigger concern is my teammates who were not so lucky.“