- Mark Cavendish is riding in what is set to be his 15th and final Tour De France
- The legendary British rider was hoping to break the Tour’s stage win record
- Cavendish did just that on stage five as his 35th win took him past Eddy Merckx
Mark Cavendish has broken the Tour de France stage wins record as he took his 35th victory of the iconic event on Wednesday.
The 39-year-old, who was knighted in the King’s Birthday Honours last month, burst clear at the end of stage five with a sensational sprint finish in Saint Vulbas.
Cavendish came off the wheel of Fabio Jakobsen in the finale and had the power to hold off Jasper Philipsen.
As he crossed the line victorious, Cavendish raised his arms before he was embraced by his team, Astana Qazaqstan, while his wife Peta and their children, also joined in the exuberant celebrations.
Cavendish’s 35th stage victory took him past the legendary Eddy Merckx, with the Brit having been level with him since his 34th stage win in 2021.
Mark Cavendish has broken the Tour de France stage wins record as he took his 35th victory
Cavendish burst clear at the end of stage five with a sensational sprint finish in Saint Vulbas
Speaking after his momentous triumph, Cavendish said: ‘I’m in a little bit of disbelief. Astana put a big gamble on this year to make sure we’re good here at the Tour, my boss has done it.
‘It’s a big gamble to come here to try to win at least one stage, a big gamble for my boss Alexander Vinokourov, a big thing to do, it shows he’s an ex-bike rider, somebody who knows what the Tour de France is.
‘You have to go all-in and we’ve done it and worked it exactly how we wanted to do, how we built the team, the equipment, every little detail has been put towards today.’
The British rider narrowly missed out on an historic 35th win at the Tour last year when he finished second on stage seven, before breaking his collarbone the next day in a crash and withdrawing from the rest of the race.
He had planned to retire at the end of last season but he performed a u-turn last October to ride in one more Tour this summer.
Cavendish’s Astana-Qazaqstan bossed the front of the peloton for much of the final 30km of the 177km stage from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne but in the finale the Manxman used his years of experience of surf the wheels before powering clear of his rivals.
He left behind his lead-out man Michael Morkov and moved behind Philipsen and then Jakobsen, before spying space on the left-hand side of the road and bursting clear.
His victory comes just four days after Cavendish struggled mightily in the heat of a punishing opening stage out of Florence, vomiting on the bike in concerning scenes, and two days after he missed the opportunity to contest stage three after being caught behind a late crash in Turin.
Cavendish’s four stage wins in 2021 counted as one of sport’s great comeback stories, his first victories at the Tour in five years after a period of time marked by illness and injury which contributed to a diagnosis of depression.
Even since those wins three years ago, Cavendish has endured more difficulty, only signing a last-minute deal with Astana-Qazaqstan ahead of the 2023 season after the collapse of another move, then seeing last year’s Tour end abruptly on stage eight.
Cavendish became the most successful male sprinter in cycling history last month when he won stage two of the Tour of Hungary, the 164th victory of his career, and he is now the most decorated Tour de France rider of all time.
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