Mark Cavendish smiling at the end of brutal Tour de France day - "Makes a nice story"

Mark Cavendish did not win the stage but was definitely one of, if not THE biggest story of the first day of the Tour de France. The Manxman seemed to be suffering from heat stroke on the first climb of the race and was dropped from the peloton with 160 kilometers to go. The 35th win dream could've ended literally within hours of the race starting, but the Manxman made it to the finish line much due to the support of his Astana Qazaqstan Team teammates.

"You know what we're doing. it's not easy, as I always say. If you got my body type now don't start cycling, but we know what we're doing," Cavendish said in a video shared by the team. "It doesn't mean it's easy we're not riding around the Tour, it was so hard. So hard but we had a plan and we stuck to it. I'd like to stay one more climb with the peloton but it was so hot. But we're happy to make it, we're ok." The dramatic situation began early on as he was dropped from the peloton with still hours of racing left, with no other riders seemingly struggling. 

He had teammates dumping a lot of water over him and also puked on the descent, a sign that clearly something was not right with the British sprinter. Then Michele Gazzoli, who was in the Astana group, abandoned the race. It seemed to be a nightmare start for the team but the situation was somewhat saved as he rode to the finale of the stage. It was 39 minutes down, but with support of teammates and also Fabio Jakobsen and Bram Welten, the sprinters made it to the line with 10 minutes still left for the time limit.

"We weren't going easy to do that, we can work out how the front guys will do, so you can work out what you need to do to make it in time... that's it really," he explains. "A bit boring, but that's the way cycling's gone. Makes a nice story to be close to the time limit. The time limit isn't there to get people out of the race, it's there when people are sick and injured and stuff..."