Things are not going well for Mark Cavendish in the opening stage of the Tour de France. The Brit of Astana Qazaqstan Team struggled early in the first stage and was eventually spotted vomiting on his bike.
Even by Cavendish’s standards, he struggled unusually early on the first climb of the day, where fellow riders like Bryan Coquard began to look after him. His regular lead-out man, Michael Mørkøv, dropped back to support him, but Cavendish quickly lost several minutes. Cees Bol, Michele Gazzoli and Davide Ballerini were also instructed to fall back to assist Cavendish.
It soon became clear that Cavendish was really not doing well, as he had to vomit during a brief descent. He was not the only sprinter to fall behind: Fabio Jakobsen (dsm-firmenich PostNL), Arnaud Démare (Arkéa - B&B Hotels), Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X) and Fernando Gaviria (Movistar) also struggled early.
For all these riders, the primary goal is to make it to the finish within the time limit in Italy, where the temperatures are between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius.