Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) had to settle for third in today's bunch sprint at the end of the 10th stage of the Tour de France but will more be remembered for his small clash with Tom Veelers that brought down the Argos-Shimano rider. However, Cavendish refuses to see it as his fault and writes it down to just an unfortunate incident.

Until now, Mark Cavendish has had trouble beating his sprint rivals Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) and Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) at this year's Tour de France and today he was once again denied the win in a head-to-head battle against the German duo. While Kittel narrowly edged out Greipel for the win, Cavendish was far behind in 3rd.

However, the sprint may not be remembered as much for Cavendish's failure as for his role in the crash that took down Kittel's lead-out man Tom Veelers. The duo bumped into each other but miraculously the Dutchman was the only one to go down.

Afterwards, the incident has been much discussed but Cavendish refused to blame himself.

"The road was bearing left, 150 meters to go the road bears left," he said. "I went to come round Veelers as he dropped the wheel, but he moved right. Unfortunately we touched elbows and with the difference of speed, he crashed. I do not believe there is fault on either side, but I hope he is ok."

The crash was not the only thing that went wrong for Cavendish in today's sprint. While the Lotto-Belisol and Argos-Shimano trains battled for position, Cavendish was far behind in the wheel of his lead-out man Gert Steegmans. The Belgian had to make an early sprint just to move the Manxman back into position as he left him in Veelers' wheel.

"For the sprint we ran out of guys and Gert went early with just under a kilometer to go," Cavendish said. "It would have been too far if I had tried to go with him. I tried to get on another train, and just got beat. We could have done things a little bit differently, but that's bike racing."

Kittel produced an amazing speed when he caught and passed Greipel just before the line, and Cavendish was full of praise of his rival who has emerged as one of the three best sprinters during the last 2 years.

"About Kittel...he is good," he said. "I think it's disrespectful to make it out as a big loss for us when he wins. He's an incredible bike rider. His team rode really well. It would have been nice to win today but he's an incredible sprinter and deserves the credit."

Cavendish will get an easy day in tomorrow's time trial and can target revenge on Thursday's and Friday's stages which are suited to the sprinters. Starting at 10.00, you can follow tomorrow's time trial in its entirety on CyclingQuotes.com/live.