Mark Cavendish’s quest to break the all-time record for Tour de France stage wins got off to a terrible start on stage 1, with the Astana rider being dropped on the first climb of the day, suffering in the Italian heat and vomiting while riding well behind the peloton.
Cavendish wasn’t meant to be a contender for the opening two stages of the Tour de France, with punchy Italian roads not suiting his spriting characteristics, however, he wouldn’t have expected to drop out of the peloton with more than 160 kilometres still to go before the finish in Rimini.
With the day’s break gone and far from an infernal pace being set on the 12.5km Col de Valico Tre Faggi, Cavendish was spotted being doused in water. Temperatures at the start were upwards of 37°C and ice vests and extra water bottles were commonplace among all teams.
Cavendish showed no signs of recovery as he dropped further back and was then seen vomiting multiple times as a number of his Astana Qazaqstan teammates went back to try and help him survive the first stage.
His team didn’t comment on what was affecting Cavendish on the opener when asked by Eurosport’s Jens Voigt what was wrong with him but it looked to be an upset stomach rather than heatstroke, with Sporza reporting that he gave up his gels and bars after not being able to keep anything down.
The gap to Cavendish and what was due to be his sprint train, Cees Bol, Davide Ballerini, Michael Mørkøv and Michele Gazzoli, to the back of the peloton, went past the 10-minute mark with still over 100km to ride in the stage.
The good news for Cavendish was that his group of five grew in size when teammates Fabio Jakobsen and Bram Welten (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Jonas Rickaert (Alpecin-Deceuninck) joined them, adding manpower to their chase for home.
Cavendish, 39, is riding his 15th Tour de France in 2024 and is in search of a historic 35th stage win which would put him above Eddy Merckx in the all-time leaderboard for stage victories.
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