Instead, with a quarter-turn of a bike wheel and a sharpened elbow, the narrative was ripped up as Cavendish was flipped on the tarmac clutching his right shoulder. While an x-ray at Harrogate District hospital showed no broken bones, a later MRI scan revealed a shoulder dislocation and ruptured ligaments.
A decision on whether Cavendish will start Sunday’s second stage from York to Sheffield will be taken on Sunday morning but he is in a lot of pain and it does not look good. During the spring he had admitted that 2014 was “all about Harrogate”. If this injury does end his Tour those words will have proved prophetic – only not quite in the way the Manx man intended.