After missing out on the Tour de France yellow jersey in Corsica in 2013, the 2014 race gave the QuickStep man the chance of redemption.

The maillot jaune is the only Grand Tour leader’s jersey missing from his collection and with stage one of the 2014 race finishing in his mother’s hometown of Harrogate, the stage seemed to be set perfectly.

Cavendish had also put his indifferent early-season form behind him and arrived on the Leeds start line with nine wins under his belt for the year.

As Omega Pharma-QuickStep came to the front with the race all set up for a bunch sprint, the home crowd roared Cavendish on as the finale ramped up – but then it all went wrong. First Fabian Cancellara launched a short-lived solo attack, which cost Cavendish’s sprint train their position on the road, then his chief sprinting rival Marcel Kittel got away as his Giant-Shimano team chased Cancellara down – leaving Cavendish with work to do.

Cavendish fought for position with Simon Gerrans, desperately trying to get back to the very front in the final few hundred metres, but after leaning too far into Gerrans, Cavendish’s bike disappeared from underneath him and he crashed, separating his shoulder in the process.

Cavendish lay on the road as Kittel claimed the victory and, for the second year running, the yellow jersey. And while the Manxman got back on his bike to roll across the finish line, visibly in pain, his race was over too.