Mark Cavendish, arguably the worlds top sprinter had to pick his way through traffic to finish in the Tour Down Under Thursday, leaving officials highly embarrassed at the third stage of the event.

Cavendish had a tough day at the office on Wednesday suffering cuts and abrasions to his face and body in a from a crash, and was left trailing late in Thursday’s finale as the peloton tackled a hilly 21 kilometer circuit three times. Cavendish said he felt sore and lethargic due to a combination of fatigue and having to take painkillers to numb the pain of the crash, which left him with a gash above his left eye.

Having to endure 40-degree Celsius temperatures, Cavendish’s task to finish before the cut-off time was made harder after police reopened the road to public use once the main peloton had passed.

A 15-time stage winner in the Tour de France and one of the biggest names in the sport, the Isle of Man rider erupted after trailing home 12 minutes behind Australian stage winner Michael Matthews of Rabobank.

“I did the whole last lap on open road, you had to stand on all sides of the thing and stop for traffic,” blasted Cavendish.

Asked if he had to negotiate much traffic, Cavendish replied.

“Quite a bit yeah, you know, more than you want in a professional race I think.”

Usually there is a ‘green light vehicle’ which normally sits behind the last rider at the back of the race convoy, but for some reason on stage 3 it moved ahead.

Race director Mike Turtur said,  “We’ve had a policy in place whereby the green light vehicle is the last vehicle on the road behind the last rider, for 13 years,” said Turtur.

“For whatever reason, our understanding is that green light vehicle was called forward of the Cavendish group with about 10 km to go and we don’t know the reason why.

“Until we know how and why, I can’t make any further comment — but it’s not the policy we’ve had in place for 13 years, it’s never happened before.

“It’s not good, but sometimes these things happen. … We’ll be meeting as soon as possible with police.”