Tourreporter
Mark Cavendish has actually done it again. In Saint Vulbas, the Briton became the sole record stage winner of the Tour de France. His competitors pay respect to Cavendish, and he himself wants more victories.
Something extraordinary must have happened before the Tour Director steps behind the podium in front of the cameras of international TV stations and answers questions from journalists. Christian Prudhomme has already commented angrily on doping cases and has taken a serious stance on safety issues.
This time, however, after the 5th stage, he stood there with a smile on his face and began to sing the praises of this historic day for the Tour de France: “Mark Cavendish will be remembered as a phenomenal champion in cycling,” said Prudhomme with his typical pathos. “I am very happy that a champion of his caliber has won for the 35th time. And I think everyone is happy.”
35th stage win – record
This was certainly the impression one could get in Saint-Vulbas after Mark Cavendish was the first to cross the finish line in this unspectacular place on a country road in the middle of nowhere in France, between trees and meadows. Almost the entire peloton then stopped in the finish area to congratulate the day’s winner.
It was Cavendish’s 35th stage win in the Tour de France – no other professional cyclist has ever celebrated as many. The now 39-year-old professional cyclist from the Isle of Man now has this record all to himself. This means he has one more stage win than the legendary Eddy Merckx, with whom he had to share the record until that day. Sure, the Belgian has also won the Tour de France five times, but that was never possible for a sprinter like Cavendish anyway.
“He is certainly the greatest sprinter there has ever been,” said his former teammate and long-time friend Geraint Thomas, the 2018 Tour winner. “He is an extraordinary personality. He had already won stages in the Tour de France when I wasn’t even a professional cyclist yet,” said John Degenkolb, now 35 years old.
Debut as a young hothead
Cavendish first came to the Tour in 2007, a young, overconfident sprinter who had to pay a lot of tuition. After several crashes, he gave up the race on the 8th stage. But the following year he managed four stage wins. His best years followed. Between 2009 and 2016 he crossed the finish line in first place a further 26 times, won the sprint royale on the Champs Élysées four times and secured the green jersey for the best points finisher twice. Cavendish only came away empty-handed in 2014, when he suffered a heavy fall in the sprint for the yellow jersey on the 1st stage of the Tour in Harrogate and had to abandon the race.
In all these years, Cavendish was sometimes the bully in the saddle, sometimes the nice cyclist with a sense of family. Never undisputed, but always admired for his achievements. But after 2016, Cavendish’s career fell into a hole. Set back by illness and injuries, his time seemed to be over. But then he made a brilliant comeback at the 2021 Tour de France with four stage wins that put him on a par with Eddy Merckx.
Sportschau Tourfunk, 03.07.2024 19:54
The long wait for number 35
Since then, he has been wondering whether he would be able to achieve this one record victory – number 35. But in 2022, he was not nominated by his then team Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl. An affront that hurt him. Cavendish’s career simply seemed to be coming to an end until the Astana-Qazakstan team, with team boss Alexander Vinokourov, who had a bad reputation as a professional cyclist because of his doping past, gave him another contract.
It was also Vinokourov who persuaded Cavendish to stay on for another year after the Brit narrowly missed his 35th victory at the 2023 Tour in Bordeaux and had to abandon the race the next day after a fall and a broken collarbone. Cavendish agreed to this and the team planned the entire season for this one day. “They took a gamble so that we would be good at this Tour,” said Cavendish in Saint Vulbas. “They believed in me.”
Cavendish remains rather sober
While his colleagues in Saint Vulbas were paying tribute to the man and his record, he seemed to be behaving strangely. Of course, Cavendish had thrown his arms in the air at the finish, as he had done with all of his many victories before. He then enthusiastically hugged his teammates and the team’s support staff and accepted the many congratulations from the peloton.
But a short time later, Cavendish seemed very sober. “Sorry that I’m not dancing around here and climbing the walls,” said Cavendish after the award ceremony. He spoke quietly and calmly, listening to his own words. The 39-year-old is not a great rhetorician, he never was. And this time too, he struggled to find the right wording, taking long pauses between the sentences with which he tried to explain himself and the secret of this success that hardly anyone had believed he was capable of.
“At this moment there is only one victory”
So he thought back to the day at work, his sprint, which he had won so convincingly, which had not gone so ideally because his team had lost their way in the chaotic final phase and he had had to make his way alone. How he had finally landed on the back wheel of the German sprinter Pascal Ackermann and then sprinted off. “At this moment there is no 35th victory, there is only this race. In fact, there is always only this one moment. You have to sprint as hard as you can to the finish line.”
That’s how he always did it, he was always only concerned with the next sprint, the next success. And that’s how he will probably continue to do it in the next two weeks. “I advised him to put the bike down when he had achieved this victory and then just retire,” said Geraint Thomas, knowing full well that his friend would not take this advice, especially not in the Tour de France.
“I love this race when I ride it, when I watch it. I always give 100 percent here,” said Cavendish. “So we’ll keep going and try to win the sprints.” It cannot be ruled out that number 35 will be followed by number 36.
