Giant-Shimano’s John Degenkolb won his second straight stage of the Vuelta a Espana ahead of a frustrated Nacer Bouhanni in Rondo yesterday while some smart thinking saw Chris Froome pull back a couple of seconds in the general classification battle.

The organisers of the 100th Tour de France came under fire after the first stage of the showpiece event ended in chaos in Bastia.

On easily the most dramatic day of this year’s Giro d’Italia so far, Adam Hansen of Lotto Belisol won the seventh stage with a fine solo effort but all the talking was about Bradley Wiggins who crashed and lost over a minute to many of his main rivals.

Dan Martin’s Garmin-Sharp team have endured more than most in the opening week of the Tour de France but matters worsened yesterday when their team manager Jonathan Vaughters was taken to task before the stage start in Rouen about reports in a Dutch newspaper that some of his riders had received six-month bans after confessing to doping.

For a moment it appeared Mark Cavendish’s Tour de France and Olympic hopes might be over on stage four to Rouen today, but the world champion is set to live to fight another day.