"I don't know why the guys went after that" - Astana mess up leadout for Mark Cavendish who fails to be in another Tour de France sprint

Leadouts in sprints often do not go according to plan. Mark Cavendish knows this all too well. Although he has already made history in this Tour de France, the Manx Missile aims to achieve more success in the bunch sprints but did not participate once again today. However that was partially because of a key moment in the final kilometers which burnt him ahead of the sprint.

"Up to three kilometers from the finish, everything went as we wanted," Cavendish analyzed in words to ITV Cycling. However, he blames Jayco Alula's Elmar Reinders for a key error in the final kilometers that cost him a result. "I don't know his name, that Dutchman from Orica. He lost the wheel of a rider in front of him and didn't close it again. He saw that I was looking at him. Then I had to do it myself."

Cavendish is referring to a moment with just under 3 kilometers to go where in a left corner there was a lot of braking and the peloton briefly split behind the first around 30 riders. Right behind that gap was Mark Cavendish who spent valuable energy closing that down, which he then couldn't use in the final sprint.

"I don't know why the guys went after that. The intention was that we would come later. We're still going to talk about it, what exactly happened," Cavendish said in the heat of the moment. "We have a plan, but it never goes exactly the way you want it to. It is what it is."

At the finish line, an absent 18th place which will mean nothing to the Kazakh team or the sprinter that has won in this race a total of 35 times. Victory number 36 is still possible but was very far from happening today. "Someone has to win, and most people lose. That's cycling, we keep trying". Three more bunch sprints are expected in this Grand Boucle, the next of which coming this Thursday with an arrival in Villeneuve-sur-Lot.