Peter Sagan disqualified from the Tour de France for throwing elbow at Mark Cavendish

Peter Sagan has been disqualified from the 2017 Tour de France after throwing out his elbow and causing Mark Cavendish to crash into a crowd barrier during Stage 4 on Tuesday. Sagan, arguably the best all-around cyclist in the world, was vying to win a sixth straight green jersey as the points leader of the Tour.

In a official statement, a Tour official said that Sagan endangered his colleagues.

The crash occurred in the final 300 meters of Tuesday’s sprint finish in Vittel. Cavendish came up along inside Sagan, trying to follow the wheel of eventual stage winner Arnaud Démare. Sagan chased the same wheel, however, and the two riders converged.

There will be a lot of debate throughout the rest of the Tour whether Sagan deserved to be DQ’d. An argument could be made that he had been nudged by Cavendish, and that Sagan was simply trying to keep his balance.

Regardless of intent, the elbow looked bad on camera. After the stage, Cavendish asked for an explanation from Sagan.

There is no statement yet from Sagan about what took place, or how he feels about the disqualification. Surely not good, though he did visit the Dimension Data bus after the stage to apologize. He was initially penalized 30 seconds and docked 80 points from the points classification for the incident.

Cavendish was treated for a shoulder injury after the incident, but there is no word yet on his status for Stage 5 and beyond. He had been battling a glandular fever in the months leading up to the Tour that kept him from competing in other races.

With Sagan out of the Tour, the battle for the green jersey is now wide open. Currently, Démare leads the competition, ahead of Marcel Kittel, Michael Matthews, André Greipel, and Alexander Kristoff, respectively.