Mark Cavendish and his son, after his thirty-fifth stage victory on the Tour de France, in Saint-Vulbas (Ain), July 3, 2024. THOMAS SAMSON / AP
Mark Cavendish is a series character. The historic one of thirty-five stage victories in the Tour de France, which the British sprinter composed between July 9, 2008, in Châteauroux, in Indre, and this Wednesday, July 3, 2024, in Saint-Vulbas, in Ain. His coronation is a blasphemy since he thus beats by one length the record of Eddy Merckx, the god of the gods of cycling.
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Even if the exploits do not suffer comparison, Mark Cavendish having forged his only on 200 or 300 meters, the legend of the Tour has erased the most sacred of names to chisel his own. The outrage of the Briton is all the greater because no one, except a few friends, still believed him capable of adjusting the greatest sprinters on the greatest event.
At 39, he is as old as his arteries. A blunt burst of speed, enough to make the brotherhood of knife grinders vanish. An aversion to the slightest hill, he who was thus the first to drop, Saturday, in the Apennines, during the first Italian stage of this 2024 Tour. It was impossible to win, he did it, and his thirty-fifth victory will be used as a masterful twist for his biopic currently being filmed.
Because Mark Cavendish is also a character in a series. The one made by Netflix around him, whose solo episode broadcast in 2023 calls for new episodes. The story of his life is titled Never Enough (” Never enough “) in original version, Never give up in VF. This video novel alternates between glory and depression, ups and downs, raw and poignant moments, sincere although in the exhibition and absolution of other troubled sides of an old runner, necessarily complex.
Netflix provides its last fuel
For two years, Netflix has been pushing the sprinter, world champion in 2011, like the wind at his back, towards this apparently impossible quest for the Tour de France. The adventure is pathetic and sublime, farcical and chivalrous. Christened “Project 35” by his entourage and marketing experts. Last year, Cavendish already failed by a whisker in the Bordeaux sprint. When, a few days later, he collapsed on the road and broke his collarbone, promising that he would never come back, how could anyone believe him? A new season remained to be written, because it is not ” never enough “ to feed the show.
Netflix, which could only have weighed in on its change of decision, is twirling around its hero this summer. Without knowing whether his triumph will be included in season 3 of the series Unchained, devoted to the Tour de France; or whether, once again, this raw character will be treated separately.
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