Mark Cavendish under serious problems on opening Tour de France day - Manxman dropped with 160 kilometers to go and puking

The dream of a 35th win at the Tour de France remains alive for Mark Cavendish however it is all but assured taking into consideration the events of stage 1. We are only halfway through the day at the moment but the Manx Missile has already been dropped from the peloton by a few minutes and is also stomach sick.

TV broadcast has shown the Astana Qazaqstan Team rider throwing up on the descent of the Col de Valico Tre Faggi. It is very possible that the British sprinter is having difficulties with the hot weather on the day or is even possibly ill.

Cavendish completed the very mountainous and difficult Tour de Suisse in preparation for the Tour in search of improving his form as much as possible and getting accostumed to the mountains that he will have to climb in the Tour de France. He did so with a good performance, so it comes as a surprise his difficulties this Saturday. He was dropped with 160 kilometers to go but has teammates Michele Gazzoli, Michael Morkov, Cees Bol and Davide Ballerini to support him on what will undoubtedly be a very long day on the bike.

His team is on an attempt to prevent the rider from finishing out of control and thus ending his dream of beating Eddy Merckx's record on the first day. The time limit for today is 16% over the stage winner's time, which will mean something between 50-60 minutes at the end of this brutal stage.

It will be difficult to do this however if he continues to be ill as the day presents 3800 meters of climbing and most of it is still yet to come; whilst the peloton is racing at high speed to control a quality breakaway featuring the likes of Matej Mohoric and Ion Izagirre.