Mark Renshaw finishes outside time cut off on stage 10 of Tour de France

Under the rules of the cycling epic, riders must finish within a certain percentage of time from the stage winner to avoid elimination.

Renshaw narrowly survived that time cut off on his first day in the Alps, part of an 11-rider group who crossed the finish line with just 33 seconds to spare.

But the brutal 11^th stage from Albertville to La Rosière – a 108.5 kilometre route which featured four hard categorised climbs – proved too much.

“Bloody mountains,” Renshaw said.

After Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas took the stage honours and yellow jersey as he stopped the clock after three hours, 29 minutes and 36 seconds, those behind him had to finish with the next 31 minutes, 27 seconds to survive.

It was a limit that Renshaw, his Dimension Data team-mate Mark Cavendish and fellow sprinter Marcel Kittel did not finish inside of. All three fought on to reach the finish, but were left bitterly disappointed.

“We always knew these stages were going to be hard, as soon as I seen them in October I knew it was going to be tough, but we just had to try, “ Cavendish said.

“Today I tried, I finished, but I was just nowhere near fast enough.

“We fought today, myself and Renshaw, we are obviously disappointed, but that’s bike racing.”

Renshaw had been ahead of Cavendish, but according to the live tour tracker, seemed to be waiting for his team-mate.

In the end both men battled up 17.6km climb to the finish at La Rosière, Cavendish the last man to cross the line one hour five minutes and 33 seconds after Thomas.

It is the second year in a row Renshaw has been eliminated from the tour after finishing outside the time limit, having succumb on stage nine from Nantua to Chambery 12 months ago.

“We are a team that believes in the dreams of individuals and Mark and Mark – but particularly Cav – have worked hard but the sport is brutal it’s tough,” Dimension Data’s team principal Doug Ryder said.