Fireworks on the 4th July...in France: Sagan disqualified and sent home

Let me start right at the top with the major news to come out of today's stage: Peter Sagan has been disqualified from the Tour de France and sent home. A bombshell that nobody seen coming. Not before the stage and not even after the incident that led to the penalty.

For a lot of this stage I thought the talking point would be about how this was the most boring stage of the Tour. In some ways it was, but it won't be remembered that way anymore. I felt that once we had digested another bunch gallop that talk would centre around Guillaume van Keirsbulck's brave solo attack. But bunch gallops in themselves often throw up drama and there was enough inside the final kilometre of today's stage to keep everyone talking well into the night.

So I apologise to Van Keirsbulck, who attacked from the drop of the flag on a lone bid for glory, but your coverage won't go beyond this paragraph. He built up a lead of almost 14 minutes at one stage, but it was never going to last. There was shades of Thierry Marie in 1991 and Cederic Vasseur in 1997 (more on that in another post soon), but on the second sprint stage of the Tour, too many behind were still desperate. And that desperation spilled over big time. Van Keirsbulck was caught with 30km to go and the fast men served up a boat load of action.

There was a crash in and around the 1km to go banner that brought down the yellow jersey, though nobody was hurt. Everyone got the same time as stage winner Arnaud Demare. And yes, even he, despite winning his first ever stage, and the first French victory at this years Tour, has become a footnote in the story of the stage. That initial crash was followed by a more brutal collision that seen Peter Sagan and Mark Cavendish collide leaving the later on the ground in agony; their respective Tours in tatters. It was the moment that would grab the headlines and spark frantic debate. Not only in the moment but in the aftermath.

As the sprint opened up the momentum of the pack appeared to drift across the road to the right. As each man came off his respective wheel, the right hand barrier drew closer. As Demare accelerated, Sagan made a move to come around him, right as Cavendish himself looked to jump. Cavendish was then left with a decision to make: Go for the ever shrinking gap up the inside, or back off and try again another day. There was no other route; not this close to the line. And for Cavendish there would only be one decision.

As the great racing driver Ayrton Senna once said, "If you no longer go for a gap that exisits, you are no logner a racing driver." It is also true with sprinters in professional cycling. Mark Cavendish hasn't won 30 stages at the Tour, all by way of the sprint, by playing it safe. He goes for the gaps and is often rewarded. Today the gap closed.

The debate lies in how it was closed. Which brings us to the question: Was it elbows out or elbows thrown by Sagan?

Elbows out or elbows thrown: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The barriers of outrageous fortune,
Or to take eblows against a sea of troubles,
And by oposing them? To die: to sleep.

William Shakespeare wrote something like that in Hamlet. I doubt I have the meaning correct, but Cavendish risked suffering the barriers to win, meanwhile Sagan sensed trouble coming up the inside and risked death by disqualification to oppose it. Or something like that.

In reality it all happened within a split second. It is hard to know how much time either had to think about what they did, and how much of it happened on instinct. Sprinters have often been known to get the elbows out to defend their line. It looked to me like Sagan did this and Cavendish hit him. In trying to maintain his balance, Sagan's elbow lurched out further given the illusion that he had thrown it at the Dimension Data rider. But Cavendish was already going down.

For that opinion though, there are others that see the opposite. It was so hard to call and too easy to break it down frame by frame as I myself have. All I do know for certain is the sprinting is crazy. These are the risks and all of them end up on one side or the other from time to time.

But whatever I may think of it, or even what Cavendish or Sagan might make of it, the race jury felt Sagan was more than a little naughty. They had such strength in their belief that Sagan was at fault that they handed him a disqualification from the entire Tour. It was a shocking decision. In doing so the debate went from split on Sagan's culpability, to outright condemnation on the severity of the penalty. It seemed way too harsh though I await their reasoning. I also await the opinion of both riders.

Did the race jury ignore the name of the rider involved, and judge the incident on merit? Did they ignore the impact of sending such a rider home, not only on fan reaction but in potential ratings? I would hope so. Or did they see this as an opportunity to make an example of him? Had Sagan become a little too aggressive of late and it was time to clamp down? I would hope not.

What is certain now is that the green jersey competition is now wide open. Everyone who can sprint a jot is now licking their chops at the idea of winning the Green Sagan jersey, I mean, Green Points jersey. Losing Sagan and his entertaining brand of brilliance is not good for the race. In equal measure though, opening up the green jersey competition as a contest for the first time in half a decade, has its appeals. Some will place an invisable acestrix beside the eventual winner that says, 'But Sagan wasn't here', but for the likes of Demare and Michael Matthews, an opportunity now presents itself. And should Chris Froome put two minutes into his rivals on the first summit finish of the Tour tomorrow, it might be the only competition left up for grabs.

All that has to come though. In the short term the debates will rage. The debate surrounding the incident and the debate surrounding the decision. The only certainty being that only the Tour can serve up such impassioned views. It will be the climbers turn tomorrow and don't doubt the chances that we'll have another story to digest.

But Peter Sagan will be watching it from home like the rest of us.