Mark Cavendish was in tears again today at the end of stage 9 at the Tour de France into Tignes, hugging his Deceuninck-QuickStep team mates after making the time cut.
The British rider, who has stormed back into top form on this Tour after several seasons in the wilderness due to illness, already has two stage wins and holds the green jersey. But the last time he rode the Tour, in 2018, he missed the time cut on stage 11 and was out of the race.
Today he was in a group of about 15 riders for most of the stage, a long way behind the head of the race. Cavendish was aided by Deceuninck-QuickStep team mates Tim Declercq, Dries Devenynsand Michael Mørkøv all the way to the line.
They filled places 157th to 160th and their group was 35:49 down on stage winner Ben O'Connor (AG2R Citroën). The time cut today was 37:20, meaning Cavendish and his team mates were 1:31 inside the cut.
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Coming over the line, Declercq's and Mørkøv's fist pumps showed they knew they had survived. Cavendish was sitting in behind them, clearly getting emotional. And then after the finish there were a few tears from Cavendish as he hugged those team mates who had aided him today.
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Interestingly, some of the riders they had started the final climb with - and ridden away from on that climb - did not make the cut. They included Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels p/b KTM), who were among six riders outside the time limit today.
The other riders outside the time limit were: Anthony Delaplace (Arkéa Samsic), Jacopo Guarnieri (Groupama-FDJ), Loïc Vliegen (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux), Nic Dlamini (Qhubeka NextHash) and Stefan de Bod (Astana-Premier Tech).
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