Cavendish: I let the team down
By Greg Johnson Manxman Mark Cavendish believes he let his T-Mobile ProTour team-mates down on the...
By Greg Johnson
Manxman Mark Cavendish believes he let his T-Mobile ProTour team-mates down on the Tour of Britain's Stage 2, where the youngster missed a decisive break and lost the event's leader's jersey. The break away, which lacked a single representative from the German squad, dealt a heavy blow to Cavendish's general classification hopes, with the 10.54 minutes lost seeing him plummet from the yellow jersey down into 34th spot.
"It didn't work out for me today and I feel like I let the team down by not getting into the break, but hopefully I can strike back with a stage win tomorrow and then I have a strong chance of winning back the green jersey," a disappointed Cavendish told T-mobile-team.com.
Cavendish had enjoyed a stellar event during the tour's previous two stages, taking both victories which boosted his season wins into double figures. "It was a really hard stage and I spent most of the time struggling at the back of the group," he added. "But I felt good in the last metres and was lucky to avoid the crash."
T-Mobile team manager Allan Peiper was equally disappointed that none of his rider's made it into the decisive break. "It was a bad day for the team today," confessed Peiper. "We knew it would be hard to control the race with just a six-man team, but the riders suffered from the chase work early on and then we lost Linus mid-way through. But I am still disappointed that we had nobody in the main break."
While the T-Mobile camp was left feeling disappointed, the emotion felt over at Tinkoff Credit Systems was one of elation after its Russian rider Nikolai Trusov claimed the stage win and general classification victory. "The team is very happy," said Trusov. "Because we came here to win the yellow jersey and for us it is the maximum. It was a really hard stage."
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