Cavendish loses cool with mechanic then storms off as fans look on | Video | Sticky Bottle

Det klikket for Mark Cavendish før dagens etappe i Tour de France... 😳😠 pic.twitter.com/gxBYYn09yW

— TV 2 Sport (@tv2sport) July 16, 2021

Mark Cavendish lost his cool in public with one of the team's workers, as the videos above and below show. He has now issued a statement, saying he was wrong and claiming he acted in the way he did over concerns for his safety

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Mark Cavendish has rightly won plaudits for his performances on the Tour de France but his performance before stage 19 began today has forced him to issue a public statement.

The British rider and his Deceuninck-QuickStep mechanic appeared to be testing Cavendish's bike before the start when the sprinter slammed the bike down - as the videos above and below reveal.

He let a roar out and shouted back to the mechanic to "sort it out" as he stormed off back to the team bus, with an expletive thrown in for good measure.

Just minutes later Cavendish was seen hugging Eddy Merckx on the start line at a staged greeting before the media, with Deceuninck-QuickStep sharing a video of that moment (below).

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Good night from #TDF2021 😊😊 pic.twitter.com/EjaCOWjIG9

— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) July 16, 2021

The staged meeting, for the TV cameras, between Cavendish and Merckx just minutes after the incident with the mechanic was a very different moment

Late tonight, several hours after the stage ended and with the videos of the incident with the mechanic having gone viral, Cavendish issued a statement via his Instagram account, saying he was wrong but stopping short of apologising.

“Many of you will have seen the video from the start of
today’s stage,” he said. “During a day of the Tour de France, as riders we are
put in a perilous situation and I wanted my bike to be perfect, in order to
help me stay safe.

“My bike had some problems when I got on it this morning.
Despite this, I should not have reacted in the way that I did and not so
publicly. I've been extremely close friends with my mechanics for over a decade
and they’ve worked tirelessly to ensure I’ve always been safe and successful.

“Although they know how short I can be when I'm stressed, no-one, especially those you care about, deserve to have a voice raised to them.

“Truly, one of the biggest factors of the success Deceuninck-QuickStep is that we are a family, and we love and care for each other, and conversations should be kept within that family.

"We have now spoken about what happened and as a group the Wolfpack will do our best to have a successful finish to (the Tour de France).”