Cycling: Cavendish tumble causes pile-up in Tour de Suisse

(GETTY IMAGES)

Mark Cavendish caused a major crash in the final stages to hand victory to Alessandro Petacchi on stage four of the Tour de Suisse yesterday. Cavendish had positioned himself well for a stage win, but touched wheels with Heinrich Haussler on the final stretch, sparking a major incident that knocked out the top sprinters to clear a path for Petacchi. Matti Breschel and Marco Marcato took second and third amid the chaos.

Overall leader Tony Martin, Cavendish's HTC-Columbia team-mate, was slowed by the crash but recorded a good time to retain his narrow overall lead against Team Saxo Bank's Fabian Cancellara. Team Sky's Thomas Lovkvist remains eight seconds off the overall lead.

Another of Cavendish's team-mates, the team leader Michael Rogers of Australia, pulled out of the race yesterday to concentrate on his training for the Tour de France.