Mark Cavendish (Etixx-QuickStep) has been in the sprint game at the Tour de France long enough to know that, regardless of the result, he is always the story of the day after a bunch finish, but that doesn’t stop him from railing against the idea every now and then.
After being beaten into third place by his former teammate André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) in Amiens on stage 5, for instance, Cavendish would doubtless have preferred to remain cloistered aboard his team bus, instead of addressing to the hefty portion of the Tour’s media corps who had set up camp outside.
“You'd do well to speak to Greipel, he’s the guy who won today,” Cavendish said at one point, his low voice barely picked up by the microphones that drew tightly around him. “I think instead of the news being that I'm beaten again, maybe it should be that Greipel has won. He's a phenomenal sprinter, he's in the green jersey and that's the second stage he won this year.”
“I actually did a good sprint, but I was just beaten by two other guys,” he said.