Excerpt from cyclingnews story on the Tirreno-Adriatico TTT with Mark Cavendish:
Cavendish: It's So Rewarding To Stand On The Podium Together | Cyclingnews.com
A little push between friends
Television images captured the moment when Tony Martin gave Cavendish a slight push. However the race judges decided that the push was not worthy of any kind of disciplinary action.
Cavendish explained that Martin pushed him after he lost his chain due to a long-standing problem with his SRAM gears.
"The problem is when we turned left on the straight road after the descent. After a corner, you want to put the power down," he said.
"And as always happens, my chain came off. It's a problem with SRAM, which we've talked about many times. So my chain came off, my foot came out and Tony was behind me at 50km/h. He has to come up to not go over my back wheel.
A few things to note:
1. Cavendish is not surprised this happened.
2. Cavendish is not angry this happened. That means he's seen it enough that he's past denial, anger, bargaining, depression and on to acceptance.
3. SRAM is specifically named as the problem. Cav does not believe it is the mechanic's fault.
Photo Credit: Cyclingnews.com