Tour de France 2017: Peter Sagan sees bid to be reinstated rejected by the Court of Arbitration for Sport

Sagan was excluded from the Tour after his sprint manoeuvre on Tuesday’s sprint stage saw Britain’s Mark Cavendish crash out injured with a broken shoulder-blade

Sagan is disappointed with the decision (Getty )

A last-ditch appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport (Cas) by World Champion Peter Sagan to be reinstated into the Tour de France has been rejected Thursday.

Sagan was excluded from the Tour after his sprint manoeuvre on Tuesday’s sprint stage saw Britain’s Mark Cavendish crash out injured with a broken shoulder-blade and other riders hurt in the high-speed pile-up that ensued

The Swiss tribune said that Sagan’s appeal would not be upheld and that “Accordingly, Peter Sagan remains disqualified from the 2017 Tour de France.”

Bora-hansgrohe said before the verdict was issued that they believed "Peter Sagan did not cause, let alone deliberately, the fall of Mark Cavendish.”

“Peter Sagan stayed on his line and could not see Mark Cavendish on the right side.”

But a return to racing after failing to take part in two stages would have unprecedented in the Tour de France and is in any case forbidden under UCI rules, which stated explicitly that “The riders must complete the entire distance of each stage to be included in the classification and to be allowed to continue in the event.”

On Wednesday Cavendish had praised the race jury for their original decision to exclude Sagan from the Tour, saying “it take a lot of balls to eliminate the world champion from the Tour de France.”

“I commend the jury on taking a decision that wasn’t based on influences from social media or outside.”

The Cas verdict was published yesterday just as the sprinters were hurtling towards another bunch sprint in the Tour, won, for a second time this year, by Germany’s Marcel Kittel.

The 60 kilometre dash for the line in Troyes was thankfully crash free although not without some recriminations over potentially dangerous manoeuvres by Tuesday’s winner, Arnaud Demare, who finished second yesterday.

“You have to make right decisions and as long as everything goes ok, there’s no problem. But when it ends up like me and Cav on the ground, that’s not so good,” ” said Germany’s John Degenkolb, who crashed on Tuesday along with Cavendish.

Meanwhile Chris Froome, who stayed well out of the sprint, said he had had a relatively relaxed day, barring a moment mid-stage when a spectator’s parasol blew into the road.

“It landed in the middle of road, it was quite scary, thankfully no-one came down,” he related.

“But that’s the nature of the Tour, things happen at the drop of a hat.” Or indeed, a parasol.