Sky falls in after Wiggins is ruled out of Tour

Wiggins’s Tour de France came to a shuddering halt on the seventh stage yesterday when he fractured his collarbone in a crash 40km from the finish line at Chateauroux.

Manx rider Mark Cavendish won his second stage in three days but another eventful day in the Tour will be remembered for the injury sustained by Wiggins.

Rotherham’s Swift, 23, and the Team Sky riders stopped to check the health of their team leader after he got caught in a tangle at the back of the peloton.

And after the ecstacy of Edvald Boasson Hagen’s stage win 24 hours earlier, the British team were last night coming to terms with their general classification hopes being shattered.

“We’ve gone from a massive high to a massive low,” lamented Swift.

“It’s just such a disappointment to lose your team leader in such circumstances.

“We came to France hoping to help Brad win the race and it’s just hard to accept right now that we won’t be able to do that.

“Everybody on the team is just so disappointed but that is how it happens in road racing.

“It’s always a hard pill to swallow, to lose your team leader, especially when Brad is in the form of his life.

“It’s just a shame we won’t get to see him try to win the Tour.”

Wiggins had positioned himself nicely in the opening six days of the Tour, just 10 seconds adrift of race leader Thor Hushovd with the Pyraneean and Alpine climbs he had prepared for still to come.

He was attempting to become the first Briton to stand on the podium in Paris after matching Robert Millar’s 1984 best of fourth place two years ago.

The race medic consulted Wiggins, who was supporting his left arm, before the Briton underwent further assessment from Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman, who helped him into an awaiting ambulance and off to hospital.

The whole team lost time as they sought to aid their stricken leader, meaning a reassessment of targets now takes priority before today’s eighth stage from Aigurande to Super-Besse Sancy.

Swift said: “We’ll have a talk about the plan (last night and today).

“It does feel a little bit that we have gone backwards, particularly after Thursday night.

“Obviously we’ll keep going but the emphasis now will probably be on just going for stage wins.”

Team Sky principal Dave Brailsford said: “It’s obviously a devastating day for the team.

“He’s in great shape, team leader, it’s the end of his Tour.

“It’s a shame we never got to see him going in the mountains. He was in the form of his life.

“(But) that’s bike racing – things change very quickly.

“We’ll keep on going. You get up, you dust yourself down and we’ll start going after different objectives, different goals.

“You’ve got to keep going. That’s the nature of the sport.”

Sports director Sean Yates revealed three of his nine-strong Team Sky squad were caught up in the melee.

He said: “We had three guys down, at least. There were three broken bikes – Rigoberto (Uran), Bradley and Christian Knees. It was a bit of a mess.”

Team Sky’s riders all lost time, with Geraint Thomas relinquishing the best young rider’s white jersey and his place in the top 10 overall.

The 25-year-old from Cardiff lost more than three minutes as a result of waiting for Wiggins, but remains Team Sky’s best-placed rider in 38th overall.

Thomas said: “It’s obviously gutting for the team. I was really looking forward to riding for him (Wiggins) in the mountains because he’s in great shape.

“It’s been great riding with him.

“He’s really developing into a good team leader and he bounced back really well from last year. It’s really disappointing for the team but we’ve got to put it behind us. It’s sport at the end of the day. It happens.”

Thomas was ahead of the incident, which was the latest in a crash-strewn first week of a Tour which has now seen eight riders withdraw.

He added: “There was a lot of fighting all day, a lot of stress.

“We’ve been lucky up until now. We’ve managed to avoid it all.

“Unfortunately Brad had that crash. He was just behind and I heard it. We sat up in the front, me, Swifty (Ben Swift) and Gerro (Simon Gerrans) and loads of groups went past and we said ‘where’s Brad?’

“Finally it came on the radio that he had broken his collarbone and was out. He’ll be back. Come the end of the season I’m sure he’ll be up there at the worlds (the World road championships in Copenhagen) – I’m sure he’ll be back (at the Tour) next year.”

When the dust settles on this setback, the decision to focus on winning stages may suit Swift, who has won five times around the world this year.

Those victories, however, all came in shorter races, and on his Tour de France debut the young Yorkshireman is quickly realising how different the demands are in cycling’s ultimate test.

“It’s such a nervy race,” he said.

“The riders are the same guys you compete against all year but it’s like a switch goes on and everyone is on edge.

“There’s a lot more at stake in every stage of the Tour de France.”

CAVENDISH ADDS TO HIS CATALOGUE OF STAGE WINS

Britain endured a day of mixed emotions as Mark Cavendish replicated his first Tour de France win with a stage seven success in Chateauroux on the day Team Sky leader Bradley Wiggins crashed out of the event.

After Wiggins tumbled to the tarmac, sustaining a broken collarbone, Cavendish secured victory in his trademark style.

It was the 26-year-old from the Isle of Man’s 17th Tour stage win of his career – moving him up to equal eighth on the all-time list – on the same road in Chateauroux as his maiden triumph in 2008.

Cavendish (HTC-Highroad), who also won Wednesday’s fifth stage in Cap Frehel, finished ahead of Alessandro Petacchi (Lampre-ISD) and former team-mate Andre Greipel (Omega Pharma-Lotto), who were second and third, respectively.

Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervelo) retained the race leader’s yellow jersey.

Cavendish, who has been linked with a move to Team Sky in 2012, had sympathy for his compatriot Wiggins.

He said: “It’s quite distressing to hear.

“He was in the form of his life and I really believed he would have done something here at the Tour de France.

“He was in great form. He was looking great in the last week and I’m really gutted for him and hope for a speedy recovery.”

Cavendish’s win moved him halfway towards Eddy Merckx’s record haul of Tour de France stage wins.

Belgian Merckx won 34 stages between 1969 and 1975 and won five successive Tours in that time.

Cavendish won four stages in 2008, six in 2009 and five in 2010.

Cavendish said: “There’s just something about the Tour de France, it just means so much. It’s where I want to keep winning, keep doing well.

“As long as I’m a professional cyclist it’s a stage I want to achieve on.

“I’ll keep doing as much as I can and see where that takes me by the end of my career.”