There is an unwritten rule in big-time professional cycling that no Grand Tour is officially underway until there is a crash involving Mark Cavendish. This year, the Giro only had to wait until the second sprint stage to get it, though on this occasion Cavendish was an innocent bystander. This crash appeared was absolutely caused by an inexplicable swerve by Roberto Ferrari, who like his name sake under the control of Michael Schumacher at the 1997 Jerez Grand Prix, swerved into the side of his rival at high speeds. Unlike Villeneuve that day in Jerez, Cavendish was unable to escape as he along with a host of others came crashing to the ground.
The most impressive bit of the video is the ability of quite a few to jump over Cavendish at such speeds without causing further accidents or injury to the World Champion.
Rightly Cavendish was furious after the race and took to his Twitter account to spit his venom. "Ouch!" he began as though he Tweeted it from his lying position on the road.
"Crashing at 75kph isn't nice! Nor is seeing Roberto Ferrari's manoeuvre. Should be ashamed to take out pink, red & World Champ jerseys," he blasted via the keyboard of his Blackberry. Indeed, it wasn't a good day to be wearing a recognised jersey what with Cav in rainbow being joined by Phinney (second day in a row on the ground) in pink and...someone else called Cavendish in red? also going down.
And he didn't stop there on his way to naming Ferrari as the biggest sprint villain since the retirement of Djamolodine Abdoujaparov. "Apparently Roberto Ferrari has said to journalists, when asked about the incident, that he can't see what happens behind him & doesn't care. Is the team of Roberto Ferrari or the UCI going to do the right thing? Other riders, including myself, have been sent home for much less."
Indeed, it would have seemed "the right thing" for such an act would have been to reopen the Colosseum in Rome and force Ferrari to fight the lions, but as it turns out the race organizers have handed down the slightly lesser sentence of relegating Ferrari to last on the stage along with a 200 Swiss Franc fine, 30-second time penalty, and the loss of 25 points in the points competition.
Given Ferrari's probable salary along with the likelihood of him winning the points competition and of him losing a dozen times that time penalty on the first mountain stage, this punishment is also knows as, nothing at all.
Speaking after the race to the press, Ferrari played the roll of an innocent man. "I don't know what happened behind me. I was trying to make my sprint," with the kind of excuse that ranks up there with his fellow Italian cruise liner captain who claimed he slipped, tripped and fell into a lifeboat which sped away before he had the chance to get out. "I do not want to cause trouble. I tried to stay on my line, but if I am relegated, I will accept it." Which is all well and good if his intended line was at a forty-five degree trajectory into the barriers.
Taylor Phinney maintains the race lead because the crash came within 3kms of the finish and therefore everyone gets the same time in the result of an accident which will come as a sigh of relief to him after his previous sigh of relief cost him dear... his Twitter feed takes up the story. "As I began to let out a sigh of relief w/ 200m 2 go, bikes and bodies began 2 bounce around in front of me. Don't like it when that happens!" I wonder why?
Battered and bruised Cavendish and Phinney, going by their speedy post-crash arrival on Twitter, have lived to fight another day, though that day won't be tomorrow. Nope, tomorrow is surely the earliest rest day in Grand Tour history and both those guys and the others who lost skin today, will need it.
P.S. It should be pointed out that Matt Goss won the stage so congratulations to him.
