Tours—Chateauroux, 160km
Like his Lotto Soudal teammate Brent Van Moer, today Roger Kluge made a valiant effort to stay away in the break with the help of Golden Greg Van Avermaet (AG2R Citreon). The day was long and flat, the final approach towards Chateauroux was incredibly straight. The direction was right for a perfect cross-tail for almost the whole day. Had the breeze been stronger, this would have been a nightmare of a day for the riders who cannot handle crosswinds. For some 50km the peloton was breathing down the necks of this leading duo, but just when the catch seemed inevitable—within 25 seconds at 14km to go—Kluge and Van Avermaet made things interesting and went down with a fight. They were not caught until 3km to go. Quickstep, Alpecin, Bahrain, and DSM all set riders to the front to bring them back. The weather was fine, the crosswinds had not materialized, today was a day for the sprinters to have their fun. And who had the most fun railing the corners and sprinting into the heart of Chateauroux?
The man who is undefeated here in Chateauroux. The man who took his first ever Tour stage win here in Chateauroux.
Wearing the Green Jersey as leader of the Points Competition, Mark Cavendish was ideally placed for the entire finale by his Deceuninck-Quickstep team. For the entire final 10km they were towards the front doing the lion’s share of breakaway reeling-in like master fishermen, and yet they conserved their men well enough to not burn them all too early and leave Cav isolated in the final kilometer. With 2km to go, Cav still had three Quickstep riders in front of him at the pointy-end of the peloton-arrow. What must it be like for Mark Cavendish to have the World Champion Musketeer Julian Alaphilippe as a Quickstep teammate doing grunt-man lead-out work in his service? What must it be like for Julian Alaphilippe to be a supporting actor in this real-time fairytale Cav has created in the twilight of his career? With 1,200m to go, Alaphilippe swung off the front job done, all energy spent. In the final kilometer, the Madman Mathieu Van Der Poel in the Yellow Jersey rode as the third-to-last-man to draw the Alpecin-Fenix lead out train even with Cavendish’s Quickstep train. In the last 400m, the trains on opposite sides of the road merged together to form one pointy arrow of the peloton again. At this point, Cavendish actually dared swing off of Quickstep’s unrivalled master lead-out man, Michael Morkov to slot in behind Alpecin’s Jasper Philipsen who was being led out by the Alpecin winner of Stage 3, Tim Merlier. But with 200m to go, before Merlier had even finished his lead out for Philipsen, Cav in Green was coming around them both. For the quad of Turkey stages Cav won this past spring, it was this same Philipsen he was regularly getting the best of…and it was this same Philipsen that took second to him on Stage 4 as well. Yes, yes, Cavendish would nip Philipsen again today, and as if by destiny he remains undefeated in Chateauroux.
It is clear to all: we are witnessing legendary events. Mark Cavendish the Manx Missile has just won his 32nd Tour de France stage. The nostalgia for the HTC days of a bygone era have not yet and will not ever dissolve for the remainder of this Tour—especially not here where Cav took his first Tour stage 13 years ago. But with this win, sound the alarms, be on your guard. For the entire next fortnight with the intensity of a wartime coast guard, we are now on watch. Not for enemy fleets, submarines, or armadas of fighter jets and bombers; no, the entirety of the cycling world is now on Record Watch.
The Belgian Eddy Merckx the Cannibal, the GOAT, the Greatest of All Time holds the Tour de France stage wins record with 34. Mark Cavendish is now two away from tying, three away from breaking that record. And Cav does seem to genuinely hate the subject. In the immediate post-race stage winner interview, Seb Piquet only alluded to the topic and Cav exclaimed “Don’t say the name. Don’t say the name. I’m not thinkin’ about anythin’. Again. I’ve just won a stage of the Tour de France. If that was my first stage, if that was my thirty-second stage, I just won a stage of the Tour de France. And, eh, that’s what people work their whole lives for, you know? I’m very, very happy, that’s all. If I’m good enough to win 50 more, I’m good enough to win 50. If I’m good enough never to win again here, so be it, I’m not good enough to win again here. Em, it’s the Tour de France.”
For a rider who has been known to be boisterous and swaggering throughout his career, I find that response incredibly grounding and potentially even humble. Perhaps I am biased, as has been stated after all, Cav was my original favorite rider over a decade ago. But it is impressive to see him not let all of this go to his head, even now he is simply just enjoying the moment and masterfully focusing on the task at hand. From what I have learned, Cavendish is one of the better students of the sport: he knows the history, the weight, and the prestige of cycling’s greatest races. He thoroughly understands it is the achievement of a lifetime just to win one stage, let alone 32. From his perspective, it is unfair to jump the gun and begin looking onto the next massive goal. I do not think Cav says this to shy away from pressure. Surely, no one puts more pressure on him than Cav himself. If it wasn’t for his own self-confidence and immeasurable drive, he could have simply retired years ago without incurring injury after injury. Now he is back at the top of his game, and he is correctly enjoying every moment of it.
That is all admirable and well-and-good for Cav, and it’s not like he is now content and will no longer try to win. For the rest of us though, we are on Record Watch. Just like those heady days of 2009, 2010, and 2011: Be on your guard, do not dare miss a sprint stage. With the dangerous possibility that UAE’s Tadej Pogacar has already wrapped up this Tour de France before even moving into Yellow, on the very first real GC test, for the rest of this Tour this Cavendish record chase shall be a story. The long flat days are no longer transition stages, but days of historic possibility. There are still five sprint opportunities that suit him, the penultimate sprinters’ chance does not come all the way until Stage 19, and the last is of course on the final stage finishing on the Champs Elysees. Cavendish and the entire Quickstep team are firing on all cylinders, to use that cliché buzzword, they have synergy; they are on a roll—with cycling that can even be taken literally. For now, they are still going from strength to strength. In chess, good moves compound, the rich get richer; such is the way of cycling sprinting as well, especially for the greatest sprinter of all time. Cavendish’s fairytale comeback is already completed with or without the record, everything from here on out is a pressure-free bonus. But for all of us who have been Cav fans for over a decade: we can now genuinely dare to dream that the Greatest Sprinter in the History of Cycling could possibly break Merckx’s 34 stage record on the Champs-Elysees perhaps while even wearing the Green Jersey. And should he do that, I would hope Cav would then retire there on the spot. Such an ending, such a sendoff would be in the running for the greatest literal ride off into the sunset in the history of all sport.
Cycling Odysseys 