Sickening moment Mark Cavendish VOMITS on live TV in Tour de France with Brit’s hopes looking bleak on day one

MARK CAVENDISH threw up on stage one of the Tour de France.

The Veteran sprinter is taking one last crack at breaking the record for the most stage wins, but things got off to a terrible start for the Brit.

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Cavendish, 39, looked to be struggling already as the heat got to the 34-time stage winner during stage one from Florence to Rimini.

The 199.2km ride is filled with hills, an enemy of sprinters like Cavendish.

In fact it's been touted as one of the hardest opening stages in tour history.

And the mountains are being coupled with heats of around 30 degrees Celsius - causing Cav to fall significantly behind the peloton.

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The Astana Qazaqstan rider was struggling so much that cameras caught him leaning over his handlebars to spit out a mouthful of vomit.

While his teammates were also seen dumping water over him multiple times in an effort to cool him down.

Fans watching on from home were concerned about what they were seeing.

On social media, one wrote: "The gap is growing now for Mark Cavendish. I fear the worst. But his health needs to come first before the race."

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While another added: "It’s so sad to see Cavendish in this state."

And a third commented: "Cavendish has shown buckets loads of resilience all of his career, he really needs to dig deep now."

The heat saw Cavendish and his Astana teammates fall some FIVE AND A HALF MINUTES behind the peloton with 114km to go, after dropping back during the first climb of the day.

While he was over nine minutes behind the leaders at the same point.

And after fighting to avoid missing the time cut, Cavendish and his teammates narrowly made it over the line in time.

However, their time (39'14") was the furthest down on the GC that any rider has been since 1962 .

Cavendish can break the record for the most Tour de France stage wins (35), which he currently shares with cycling icon Eddy Merckx, with one more stage victory this year - with his eyes on the flat sprinting stages.

Cavendish, handed a knighthood earlier this month, admitted that he was nervous ahead of this year's tour.

Speaking to Eurosport, he said: "I'm a little nervous, but I am always nervous at the start of the tour."

Adding: "It's not going to be easy, but we should get through today and then we're on the roads."

But he isn't concerned about damaging his legacy by not taking the stage win record for his own.

He told : "At this race, I don’t have anything to lose, it’s not like playing roulette. If I don’t win here, I won't lose 34 stage wins.

“I own the most stage wins of the Tour de France alongside the great Eddy Merckx. How many more doesn't matter.”

Adding: "We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t think it was possible.

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“Our job is to try and win. Realistically, there are five or six chances.

";It’s hard and it’s up and down, but we come here and we have everything in place that we can do it. So we’ll try.”

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