At Tour's Fifth Stage, a Focus on a Rider Who Is No Longer in the Race Bryn Lennon/Getty Images "I'm shredded, I'm angry," the American Ted King said while discussing his controversial removal from the Tour. MARSEILLE, France - Mark Cavendish stood on the podium here, smiling broadly and accepting the kisses and flowers that came with his Stage 5 win at the Tour de France. But not even a victory by Cavendish, the world's best sprinter, could take the focus Wednesday from Ted King, who did not even race in the stage, a 142-mile ride along the Mediterranean coast. King, an American riding for the Cannondale team, had been removed from the Tour by race organizers the night before, after finishing seven seconds over the time limit for the day's stage, a 15.5-mile team time trial around Nice. Though his Italian team lodged a protest and a Twitter hashtag, LetTedRide, was started, race organizers were firm in their reply: King was out, just four days after starting his first Tour de France. "I'm shredded; I'm angry," King, 30, said as he walked along a beach-side road in Cagnes-sur-Mer before the start Wednesday. It's been an absolute emotional roller coaster. King separated his left shoulder in a crash in the final miles of Stage 1, making Tuesday's time trial a painful ordeal. He was left behind by his team early in the race, and he finished on his own in 32 minutes 32 seconds, 6:36 behind the winning time by Simon Gerrans and the Orica-GreenEdge team, which won the stage. Typically, there would not have been any controversy; failing to finish within the time limit - calculated as within 25 percent of the day's best time - happens regularly at the Tour. When the race ends in Paris on July 21, the peloton will be considerably thinner than when it rode out of Porto-Vecchio for Stage 1 on Saturday. But Tour officials can reinstate a rider if there are extenuating circumstances, which many in the sport felt existed in King's case. They argued that the pileup he was involved in Saturday could be attributed to a series of decisions made by race organizers after the Orica-GreenEdge bus became stuck under the finish line gantry. The race jury and tour owners "should recognize that decisions they made on Saturday in Bastia directly caused King's injury," Neal Rogers wrote in an editorial on the cycling Web site VeloNews. After the stage, there was confusion about King's official time. Organizers were initially unable to produce a time for him, simply listing him as finishing past the cut. Later they awarded him a final time that also served as his departure notice. King was perplexed. On Tuesday, his injury had prevented him from using a time-trial bike, which is more aerodynamic than a typical road bike. He believed initially that the alternate bike had not been equipped with the transponder that Tour officials use to clock riders. He said his bike's power meter revealed a time eight seconds faster than the official numbers and within the cut. To support his case, he uploaded the data from the power meter to Twitter, where he received a huge outpouring of support from fans and current and former professionals, including Jens Voigt and Lance Armstrong. "I'm not trying to exacerbate things or complicate issues," he said in an interview Tuesday night. But the time I have is below the time limit. I'm officially out of the race, but it's sort of wait and see. At the team hotel Tuesday night, he held out hope, checking his e-mail and Twitter feed hoping to be reinstated. King is not Cannondale's top rider. That is Peter Sagan, a 23-year-old Slovak who is wearing the green jersey as best sprinter. King is one of the team's domestiques, a rider whose duties include pace-setting and fetching water. Other riders have been reinstated in the past. In 2011, Cavendish was allowed back in the race after finishing a stage almost 36 minutes behind the leader, Andy Schleck. Paul Sherwen, now a commentator for NBC Sports, was behind by 26 minutes in 1985 and was reinstated. And in 1991, Urs Zimmermann, a Swiss rider on Team Motorola, was removed from the race for failing to take a flight chartered by the Tour - a decision motivated by a fear of flying - before being reinstated thanks to Jim Ochowicz, the team manager. "I had to argue with A.S.O.," Ochowicz said, referring to the Amaury Sport Organization, the company that organizes the Tour. "I said: "O.K., instead of kicking him out, kick me out." So they kicked me out and brought him back in. Roberto Amadio, Cannondale's team manager, was not so successful on Tuesday night. "We talked with the president of the jury to try and get him to understand what happened," Amadio said. "But they said, "Those are the rules; we can't change the decision." " As King walked back to his team bus Wednesday, Philippe Mauduit, a sport director for Team Saxo Bank, pulled up in a car to offer support in the form of a smile and a quick chat. After the car pulled away, King choked up when asked about the outpouring of support. "It is nuts," he said. There were a lot of very powerful people reaching out on my behalf. That's what makes this so hard.