Veelers' crash, in the last 200m of the 197km 10th stage from Saint Gildas des Bois to Saint Malo in Brittany, came just as the main contenders for the stage victory were launching their sprint to the line after being lead out by their teammates.

Cavendish escaped sanctions for his role in a late crash  which saw Veelers hit the ground in the finishing straight.

Veelers (Argos-Shimano) was the lead out rider for German Marcel Kittel who won the stage - his second win for this Tour - from German champion Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) and Cavendish (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) in that order. Australian Matt Goss (Orica-GreenEDGE) was 11th.

But as the leaders crossed the line, still on the road and in shock was Veelers who was later cleared of major injury after a medical check-up.

Video replays appeared to show Cavendish riding left, into the Dutchman's line; although Veelers appears to veer slightly to his right.

Veelers was clear about what he thought of the incident.

"I did my lead out for Marcel, and as I did my job, I went out of the way," Veelers said.

"And it was Cavendish who took me off my bike. When I see the video it's very clear it's his fault. He has to be disqualified.

"The sprint was strange, it's unbelievable that something like that happens. I want an apology at least. I'm a little finished with Cavendish."

Cavendish defended himself later outside the team bus, but after answering several questions about the crash he became agitated and at one point took a reporter's microphone which was later returned.

Asked if he saw what happened when Veelers went down, Cavendish said: "The road was bearing left ... I know you're trying to get all the 'Mark Cavendish is a really bad sprinter again' [angles], but with 150 metres to go the road bears left ...

"All I do is follow the road ...There will be net forums with people going mad about it, but I follow the road, I'm not going to hit the barriers...

"The commisaires are already putting the blame on me ...You can see he moves a little bit right, I move a little bit left ...

"It's not like I took his wheel, I'm following the road ... It was the arms that touched anyway...

"The road is going left, make it a straight sprint (if you don't want any incidents). I hope it's ok..."

Asked what happened to him and his team in the sprint, Cavendish said: "We came up. We lost our guys. Gert (Steegmans) went early and I tried to follow Gert. If I had followed his wheel and launched from there it would have been too early in the sprint so I settled back on to Veelers' wheel."

Cavendish said the incident should not detract the value of Kittel's victory. "It's disrespectful to make it out like it's a big loss for us because Kittel is an incredible bike rider," he said.

"His team rides really well. I think the team could have done some things differently but we will talk about that later."

Cavendish answered more questions about the finishing sprint, one being if he could have done anything differently, to which he replied: "We as a team could have done something different. We will talk about that later."

Then, when asked by a reporter if the crash was his fault, Cavendish answered: "What was what my fault?" before grabbing his tape recorder and then continuing to answer more questions. Soon after the recorder was returned.