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Cavendish comes a cropper on Tour of Britain

Castle Douglas - British sprint great Mark Cavendish's hopes of an 11th stage victory in the Tour of Britain met with disaster as he crashed on the opening stage won by German Andre Greipel on Sunday.

The 31-year-old Isle of Man born rider came down along with Italy's Elia Viviani, who edged Cavendish out of gold in the omnium event at the Rio Olympics, 200 metres from the finish - the Italian's bike being broken in two.

Greipel avoided the carnage to storm home and take his fifth win in the race's history ahead of Caleb Ewan and Ramon Sinkeldam.

"It's really nice to start off this Tour of Britain with a victory and now we reached our goal for the first day and everything else is on top," Greipel told ITV4.

"I've done six weeks of training after the Tour de France and this race is really important towards the next goal (October's Road World Championships). The Tour of Britain is quite a tough race, but it's the right moment in the race calendar," added the 34-year-old Lotto-Soudal rider.

Cavendish's fellow British cycling great and 2013 winner Bradley Wiggins - who won an eighth Olympic medal and fifth gold in Rio in the team pursuit - had an easy day finishing in the peloton.

Monday's second stage sees the riders begin in Carlisle and riding 187.7km to finish in Kendal.

Tour of Britain results from Sunday's first stage, a 168km ride from Glasgow to Castle Douglas:

1. Andre Greipel (GER/LOT) 4hr 52min 40sec, 2. Caleb Ewan (AUS/ORI) same time, 3. Ramon Sinkeldam (NED/GIA) s.t., 4. Maximiliano Richeze (ARG/ETI) s.t., 5. Giacomo Nizzolo (ITA/TRE) s.t., 6. Nicola Ruffoni (ITA/BAR) s.t., 7. Steele Von Hoff (AUS/ONE) s.t., 8. Chris Latham (GBR/WIG) s.t., 9. Daniel Mclay (GBR/FOR) s.t., 10. Jens Debusschere (BEL/LOT) at 3sec

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