CYCLING:ONE PHRASE cropped up time and again yesterday evening as the news of Bradley Wiggins's withdrawal from the Tour de France was digested here: "In the form of his life".

From the day’s stage winner, Mark Cavendish – now on 17 stage wins in four-and-a-bit Tours – to the Team Sky management, the consensus was Wiggins had been on course to do something special before his aspirations were shattered about 40km from the finish of what was looking like a relatively routine stage, if one that was taking longer than scheduled due to a strong headwind.

The mass pile-up on a dead straight road saw the bulk of the field held up, and left Wiggins lying in the middle of the tarmac, with his team-mates gathered around him.

“He said he was at the front, a few went down in front of him and that was it,” the Sky race coach, Rod Ellingworth, said. “We had three guys down, three broken bikes. It was chaos,” the directeur sportif, Sean Yates, said.

After several minutes in which he seemed to contemplate getting back on his bike, the triple Olympic gold medallist was taken to hospital after the Sky doctor Richard Freeman diagnosed a broken collarbone at the roadside.

As they digested the fact that they were now leaderless, Team Sky said they would attempt to regroup and win another stage before the end of the Tour.

“It’s a sad day for the team, but we have to stand tall, and think of the other eight guys on the bus and keep their morale high,” said coach, Shane Sutton, who had been working closely with Wiggins this year to bring him to the Tour in the best possible shape.

“We’ve got one stage in the bag already and we will have to take our chances to win more,” Yates said. “We know Rigoberto Uran can climb well and Edvald Boasson Hagen and Ben Swift can sprint so we will have chances.”

Wiggins was not the only one in trouble yesterday. The American Levi Leipheimer, an outside bet for the podium, had another nightmare day, coming down in the pile-up that put the Sky leader out then puncturing in the finale as he chased the field.

He is now four minutes and 29 seconds down in the standings, and said yesterday the blend of uphill finishes, the lack of a time trial to sort out the standings and the narrow roads had made this year’s race particularly stressful and crash-ridden.

While Wiggins had been in the form of his life, Cavendish remains in his usual Tour de France form, which must be close to his best. Yesterday he was “imperial” as the French would say, with the result never in doubt as his HTC-Highroad team had put in their best performance in the Tour so far, providing him with an impeccable lead-out, with no other teams able or willing to get in their way.

The Manxman was delivered to the 150m to go point by his usual pilot Mark Renshaw, and sprang as his former team-mate and bitter rival Andre Greipel made his move on the right.

Cavendish went left, Greipel stayed right and while the German gained an initial few inches Cavendish crept inexorably back at him, to win by a wheel.

Yesterday’s victory takes Cavendish to 17 stage wins in the Tour, eighth in the all-time standings and the chances are he will better Eddy Merckx’s record of 34. At his current average of five per Tour, he should do it some time in the 2014 race, but he was adamant he has no thoughts of the record for the moment.

“To consider doing something the great Eddy Merckx has done never crosses my mind, it’s aiming higher than the stars. I’ll come back as often as I can, do as much as I can and see where it takes me,” said Cavendish