WORLD CHAMPION PETER Sagan has this evening been sensationally kicked out of the Tour de France for his role in a crash that saw Mark Cavendish taken to hospital.

The Bora-Hansgrohe rider appeared to use his elbow to send Cavendish into the barriers at the sprinting climax of today’s stage from Mondorf-les-Bains to Vittel, leaving the ‘Manx Missile’ clutching his shoulder after a violent collision with barrier and road.

“We’ve decided to disqualify Peter Sagan from the Tour de France 2017 as he endangered some of his colleagues seriously in the final metres of the sprint which happened in Vittel,” said the president of the race commission Philippe Marien.

Christophe Ena Christophe Ena

Cavendish finished the stage after receiving medical attention but injured a finger and his shoulder and was later taken to hospital by ambulance.

“I get on with Peter well but I don’t get it. If he came across it’s one thing, but the elbow?” Cavendish told reporters outside his Dimension Data team bus before going to hospital.

“I’m not a fan of him putting his elbow in like that. I get on with Peter, a crash is a crash, but I’d just like to know about the elbow.”

Sagan went on to finish second today and sat second in the overall standings before this evening’s DQ.

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