Mads Pedersen wins eighth stage of Tour de France after Mark Cavendish crashes out

Denmark's Mads Pedersen won the eighth stage of the Tour de France, a 200-km ride from Libourne on Saturday.

His compatriot Jonas Vingegaard retained the overall leader's yellow jersey on a day where the main incident was Briton Mark Cavendish crashing out of the race after a heavy fall.

Former world champion Pedersen claimed a second career stage win at the Tour de France with a big burst of power to win a mass sprint.

Pedersen proved the strongest in the long final stretch of road leading to the finish line and the Danish rider held off a late challenge from Jasper Philipsen, who had won all three previous sprints this year.

Wout Van Aert completed the stage podium in third.

The stage was marred by several crashes, including the one that ruled Cavendish out of the race. The ace sprinter hit the ground with 64 kilometers left while riding at the back of the peloton.

The 38-year-old, who will retire at the end of the year, fell off his bike and was taken into an ambulance for checks before his withdrawal was made official by race organisers.

The Astana-Qazaqstan rider was looking to become the only man with 35 stage wins on the world's greatest cycling race, to beat the record he shares with Belgian great Eddy Merckx, who bagged 34 victories from 1969-75.

On Friday, Cavendish came close to achieving his goal when he took second place in the seventh stage in Bordeaux after suffering a mechanical problem in the final straight.

Pedersen was swift to hail Cavendish.

"It's sad a legend like him ends his Tour like that," said Pedersen.

Cavendish’s teammate Gianni Moscon said the veteran rider had to brake suddenly because of a crash in front of him.

“And someone changed line and he just hit the rear wheel of the guy in front of him and went down,” Moscon said. “It was quite bad. I stayed with him to see how he was, but he wasn’t able to go on with the race so we had to go back in the peloton.”

Vingegaard retained the overall leader's yellow jersey with a 25-second advantage over UAE Team Emirates rider Tadej Pogacar with Australian Jai Hindley in third place, 1:34 off the pace.

Briton Simon Yates crashed some 5.5km from the finish line and lost 47 seconds, slipping down to sixth overall from fourth with his twin brother Adam now fifth.

Sunday's ninth stage ending with the ascent to the Puy de Dome - for the first time since 1988 - will start from Saint Leonard de Noblat, where former France great Raymond Poulidor was buried in 2019.