Dubai: Former champion Mark Cavendish was pleased with his third-place finish in the opening stage of the 2017 Dubai Tour.
Team Dimension Data’s British rider, who won here in 2015, remained in the peloton through most of the 181 kms until a pothole closer to the finish dashed his ambitions.
“I hit the pot hole and I went ‘bang’ in the hole. What am I supposed to do in a sprint like that?” he queried.
“So the third place is not bad though. I just couldn’t pass, I couldn’t do anything,” he shrugged.
Until that incident, Cavendish was in the front alongside other accomplished sprinters like defending champion and stage winner Marcel Kittel, Trek-Segafred’s John Degenkolb and Team Sky’s Elia Viviani.
It was Kittel he was after till the tyre-burst that did not allow him to get off the saddle and push for an outright win. “I wanted to be on Kittel’s wheel,” Cavendish said.
“When a team comes up late and has the whole team, it’s probably the best lead out you can have. But when the sprint started I just couldn’t stand up in the sprint. I could feel the tyre hard on the rim. The Dutch lad (Dylan Groenewegen) came up on along the side and I rather let him in, than crash. In a situation like that, I’m quite happy,” he added.
He was happy that all his teammates Nick Dougall, Bernhard Eisel, Ryan Gibbons, Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg, Mark Renshaw, Robert Jay Thomson and Scott Thwaites did will to keep the team’s aspiration for a late onslaught.
“The guys did really well. We were super strong today. Scott (Thwaites) was wicked, young Ryan (Gibbons) was amazing, He was superb, and then Mark (Renshaw) shepherded me,” Cavendish complimented.
“They also did some long stints into that wind that was really good. We missed Van Rensburg, so we were one man down. I don’t know where he was. He came up in the end but it was too late then,” he added.
This is not the first time that the sprinter from Great Britain has had his share of bad luck. “I’ve had a late flat a few times in sprints. I was second in the last stage of the Vuelta in 2010, with my wheel touching the frame. Even on this stage I’ve finished with a flat tyre in the past. It’s part of bike racing. It’s just what happens,” he said.
“Finally, I think it’s the best result I’ve ever had on this stage,” the British rider smiled.
