Back to his best: Cavendish takes another stage Photo: © Roberto Bettini

Stage 11 of the 2010 Tour de France came down to an exciting sprint finish. As legendary lead-out man Mark Renshaw made his move to position Mark Canvendish for the sprint win, he head butted Garmin Slipstreams lead-out man Julian Dean as he pulled out Tyler Farrar. What does it mean for the best sprint lead-out man in the Tour? He is now kicked off the Tour de France.

Mark Renshaw’s Statement Regarding Removal:

“I’m extremely disappointed and also surprised at this decision. I never imagined I would be removed from any race especially the Tour de France. I pride myself on being a very fair, safe and a straight up sprinter and never in my career have I received a fine or even a warning.”

“Julian came hard in on my position with his elbows. I needed to use my head to retain balance or there would have been a crash. If had used my elbows when Julian brought his elbow on top of mine we would also have crashed. The object was to hold my line and stay upright.

“I hadn’t started the sprint yet. We were still at 375m to go. After that Cavendish had to start his sprint early and I was also ready to finish off the sprint as I still had a lot left in my legs. It would have been good to try to take some more points. I only saw open space on my left. I had no idea Tyler Farrar was there. By no means would I ever put any of my fellow riders in danger.”

Video Coverage from VS on the Incident:

Mark Cavendish On The Sprint Finish:

“Julian came and he was fighting with Mark at the finish and it left me boxed in – if he’d have pushed him across, as soon as I saw a gap I had to go,” said Cavendish after the finish.

“Normally I go with 200 or 250 [metres] maximum and at 375 metres to go I saw a gap… it wasn’t so much a sprint but a little breakaway, well, by my standards anyway! It was hard, actually… It was a really, really long way to the finish – I thought somebody would be on my wheel and come around, but they didn’t,” he explained.

“I don’t know whether Tyler [Farrar] was with Julian, maybe he thought Tyler was with him… otherwise he was just trying to put Mark off,” continued Cavendish, who had a back seat view of the incident before jetting off for the stage win. “Like I said, if Julian was [coming across intentionally] it shut the door and I could’t go – maybe that’s what he was doing: trying to shut the door for me.”

Was Kicking Renshaw Off The Tour Excessive Punishment?

After watching the footage, I will let you make your own conclusions, but I think the reason he was kicked off the Tour was because it was so blatant. In high speed, confined sprint finishes in the Tour de France, full contact racing can have drastic and devastating results if gone wrong. Especially in this year’s Tour that has already been plagued with wrecks and incidents that have taken out much of the top GC contention, the Tour can not afford to have all of their top sprinters taken out of the race because of actions taken during the event by riders.

If Renshaw would have just done it once or twice, he would have gotten a slap on the wrist, but with the frequency and force he applied, the Tour organizers had to take drastic measures for the safety of the other riders on the Tour. Now…the big question remains…can Mark Cavendish win without Mark Renshaw?

In another flatter stage of the Tour, the overall standings remain unchanged and Andy Schleck gets to enjoy another stage in yellow just over 40 seconds ahead of Alberto Contador.

Next Stage: Stage 12 - 210.5km – Bourg-de-Peage to Mende

Stage 11 Final Results

GC Standings After Stage 11