Adam Blythe critical of Cavendish’s Tour de France Stage 3 performance as pundits clash on The Breakaway

There were mixed views on Mark Cavendish’s sixth placed finish on Stage 3 of the Tour de France as The Breakaway panel clashed over his performance.

British rider Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates) finished safely in the peloton to retain the yellow jersey for a third day.

Former racer Robbie McEwen – who was a three-time winner of the points classification in the Tour de France – thought it was an encouraging day’s work for Cavendish.

“Promising that he’s up there at the pointy end and it would’ve been disappointing had he just rolled in around 67th or something and not been able to sprint”, he said.

“Sixth. Not up to his lofty standards of years gone by but encouraging nonetheless that he was there and there’s plenty more days to come.”

Fellow pundit Dan Lloyd agreed with McEwen’s thoughts but admitted a lack of time spent racing alongside team-mate Cees Bol could prove problematic.

“I think he’ll stick with it for the time being but there’s been a lot of speculation as to why they haven’t raced together a little bit more in the lead up to this race”, Lloyd said.

“I think sixth place is really promising for him with the sprints that we’ve still got to come because that was a really fast finale”, he added.

However, former rider Adam Blythe said: “You guys are saying sixth is promising. Rubbish. We’re concentrating too much on him saying the third week is where he can shine.”

“Yes, he’s not too far off, but I think we’re thinking too much about he’s just more concentrated on the third week. He’s not. He’ll have wanted to win today as much as he’ll have wanted to win in the third week.”

“Yes, sixth is good but in his terms, it’s not good enough by far. I think because he said it, we’re getting lured into him thinking about this last week, last week. I don’t think we should be at all. We need to look at Mark every day, every sprint, that it’s his chance to make history”, Blythe said.

Lloyd thinks perspective is needed though so early in the Grand Tour.

“When you were looking at the overhead shots and trying to pick out Mark Cavendish, there were bits much earlier in the stage, let’s say 10, 8kms to go where they were completely absent but coming in towards the sprint finish, let’s say 6, 5kms to go, there were riders bringing him up towards the front and trying to bring him into the right position”, Lloyd said.

“They’re never going to be able to boss it on the front at any point in this Tour de France but if they can get him up there towards the finish, Cees Bol ideally as well as fresh as possible, but even if he has to do some work, as long as they can get him onto the right wheel at the right time that’s when he’s got a big chance of winning a stage.”

Blythe still thinks it was a missed opportunity for Cavendish.

“He will be frustrated today because if he’s sixth, he’s been there or there abouts and he’s got the legs to win, so for him to be sixth is good but he won’t be happy.”

It was a tense end to the race with Philipsen taking the stage win in a sprint finish which had to be referred to the race jury – who studied replays to ensure Philipsen had not veered off his line and boxed out Wout van Aert.

12-time stage winner McEwen thinks it was an incredibly well-measured finale.

“It was perfect. They played it cool the whole time. Soudal Quick-Step were so good until about 1.2km to go and that’s where Alpecin-Deceuninck took over and that lead out by van der Poel was perfection. Philipsen didn’t move, he always had van Aert on the side he needed. He is just too strong in this situation, a rising finish, long dragging sprint and he got it done.

“Pure sprinters look at all these little things and go ‘I know exactly what I’m going to do in this situation’. Jasper will have seen the barriers 120m in front of him and he will have known that would close anyone down. These are the sort of things you ride to. That’s the way the course was and that was perfect sprinting.”

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