Nimes—Carcassonne, 219km
It was a long one to control, and in the last 60km it was the Deceuninck-Quickstep Wolfpack vs the field to hold the peloton together for the sprint. A sizeable 30-man crash took out the Wolfpack’s Tractor Tim DeClercq who would have been essential in neutralizing every attack. Instead the burden to chase everything down or follow every move like an anchor fell upon the Wolfpack’s Julian Alaphilippe the Musketeer wearing the World Champion’s Rainbow Jersey and the Tour of Flanders winner Kasper Asgreen. It is notorious for a breakaway to survive into Carcassonne for often the stages are long and difficult to control like this one was today. But the Quickstep Wolfpack were on a mission to make history this very day if they could deliver the Manx Missile Mark Cavendish to the line first. They made it all the way to the outskirts of Carcassonne, but by that point their lead out had been much more diminished than they would have liked. Dries Devenyns was done, and Mattia Cattaneo was already emptying the tank. Additionally, the final run-in was hectic, technical, and narrow. There were no crashes, but undermanned it was still harder than usual for the Wolfpack than on Cav’s other chances this Tour. But under the Flamme Rouge, the Red Flame signifying 1K remaining, there was Quickstep with 3 Wolves in front of Mark Cavendish wearing the Green Jersey as leader of the Points Classification at this Tour de France. That’s when the weight of the scene really fell upon us all viewing: we are one-minute away from seeing if Cav could really do this. For an entire decade, Cav and the Merckx 34 Tour stage record has been a topic of conversation. Now here today, would he finally equal it? The heartrate rose, the palms began to sweat, the eyes widened, nothing in the world could distract us in that moment. And then something strange happened, the last K became interminable.
As usual, like charging bulls the lead-out trains were galloping to the line in drag-race formations with the Wolfpack quartet clearly at the tip of the arrow. Kasper Asgreen—that powerful engine—still drove on the front for another 400m until a 90-degree left hand turn with about 600m to go. But into that turn, Quickstep had the inside line and as Asgreen swung off they were swamped by all their rivals. All of this seemed to be taking much longer than usual. Were all viewing caught up in the surreal moment? We were all so focused and in the zone that time was slowing down so that we could follow and analyze all the minute machinations of the sprint, and one man in Green above all? Perhaps this was all psychologically going on, but something else less noticeable was also physically transpiring as well: this finish was on a false-flat uphill drag for most of the last kilometer. With 500m to go, DSM had two driving the pace and Bahrain’s Sonny Colbrelli was in good position. Quickstep still had Davide Ballerini and that talisman Michael Morkov for Cavendish, but Cavendish was getting unhooked as top rivals like Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea-Samsaic) and Michael Matthews (Team BikeExchange) were rapidly moving up. O! Cav had to scramble to latch back onto Morkov’s wheel, while ahead teammate Ballerini was leading out almost too fast for anyone else’s liking. And still they were not even in the last 300m yet. Up to Ballerini came Movistar’s Ivan Garcia Cortina to take his shot at glory; Cortina’s presence really begins to hint at how deceptively hard this finish was. All the other sprinters were falling away, even Matthews and Colbrelli who need some sort of ramp like this if they are to win a sprint. But one man did not let Garcia Cortina get away: the finest lead out man in the history of the sport, Michael Morkov the Dane, the Tactical Grandmaster. And on the wheel of Morkov, turning himself inside out to finish off the job his team had put their hearts and souls into all day, was Mark Cavendish the Manx Missile the hero of the real-life fairytale of his own creation. Morkov could not have drawn even with Cortina until less than 50m remaining on the stage, and through it all he was powering up seated in the saddle. But before Morkov even drew level with Cortina, behind with every last scrap of energy and every fiber of his being, Cav was launching round his Grandmaster lead out man. He had the bit between his teeth, he was scrambling and wrestling with the bike, he was desperate to get to the line fastest—simply to have the job completed. Alpecin’s Jasper Philipsen was coming up as well, but Cavendish has had his number all season. Ahead, Cortina had topped out, reached maximum velocity. And Mark Cavendish the Manx Missile in his tiny low-aero position had enough acceleration in those closing meters to finish the job in Carcassonne, and take the 34th Tour stage win of his career equally Eddy Merckx’s thought-to-be unassailable record.
That one hurt, that was by far the most difficult of his 4 stages this Tour. The finish was harder than it looked, it caught out O! so many of the other sprinters who went too early. The pure sprinter Mark Cavendish could have given up, packed it in, or at least just rolled in for a calculated 6th or 7th place to score a respectable sum of Points; but he didn’t. Cav did not give up on this one, he rode it all the way out and the stars the aligned…or he and his Wolfpack team made the stars align. And after so long, after so many years, after four years of complete bottom-of-the-barrel darkness, finally, finally the record is equaled. As his teammates came to hug and congratulate him, Cav would notably hug them even harder in gratitude and confirm they had just “Made History.” Then we eagerly awaited the winner’s interview to see if he would finally drop the façade that the 34-stage record did not matter to him. To his credit, in the interview he stuck to his script: he was too tired to think straight because he had to dig so deep for that one, but he recalled in detail the blow-by-blows of the final kilometer. When pressed on the significance of tying the Merckx record, still he said he was just thrilled to win another stage of the Tour—the race he dreamed of as a kid—and hopefully his performances here will inspire the next generation of children who were watching. Later in the full press conference, he said he should never be compared to Eddy Merckx who is the greatest cyclist of all time. This is fair enough, and true: of course, Cavendish is not greater than Merckx, nor in the same league. But Mark Cavendish is the greatest sprinter of all time; and after this Tour, Mario Cipollini is finally solidly in second place. So Cav can say he has no interest in comparing, but he does know he made history today. Thus, I think the question is fair: which individual accomplishment is more impressive, Merckx’s 34 Tour stage wins or Cav’s? I could be swayed either way, but in order to keep my word I shall now hop off the fence and take a stance. The time for objective impartial viewing of both sides of the argument has been done, and now must be set aside. The road has met the rubber. The pushes have come to shoves.
Paradoxically, though there are very few people who cherish the Swiss Army Knives and Renaissance Men of cycling more than me because they take diverse and dynamic wins across multiple cycling disciplines and on all types of terrains: Mark Cavendish’s 34 Tour stage victories are the impressive pinnacle of specialization, and I think Cav’s specialized 34 Tour stages is a greater feat than Merckx’s versatile 34. I base my ultimate case on two pillars: quality and opportunity. But first to address the minor point people will always level against Cav: “He won because he had the best lead out train.” Mark Cavendish’s Wolfpack lead out train in 2021 is essentially the same Wolfpack lead out train Sam Bennett had in 2020, and even the same Wolfpack lead out train Elia Viviani had for multiple Grand Tours before that. The praise given to Michael Morkov the Tactical Grandmaster can never be enough, but at this 2021 Tour the Quickstep lead out looks much better than it did for Sam Bennett in 2020 with essentially the same personnel. Do they all like Cav more than Bennett? Doubtful, both seem good guys. Do they just want to be part of history, helping the legend win? Certainly, but I don’t think that is what made them clearly elevate their game. Their game has been elevated because they are confident in Cav like no other sprinter before. Notice how much more outstanding the lead out was for Cav’s third stage win this Tour compared to his first—even today on his fourth when they were banged up and undermanned it was better than Cav’s first win on Stage 4. These guys feed off Cav’s confidence subconsciously. They are more prepared to bury themselves for the clutch lights-out winner than for the guy just doing well, or for the unproven hopeful up-and-comer. It was the same back with the HTC Highroad days, Cav’s head-and-shoulders prowess made that lead out train the best in the world.
Now, let us treat quality. In Merckx’s day the difference between the quality of the winner and 100th place at the Tour was a bigger chasm than the Grand Canyon, and the difference between first and tenth was also still a sizable gap at times as big as the Mississippi River south of St. Louis. In Merckx’s era, of course certain guys were better at sprinting or climbing or time-trialing or riding GC for a full Grand Tour. But in general, all the riders were much more versatile than the riders have been for Cav’s years of racing. As Cav was coming up the competition was so fierce, riders could only afford to hone-in and perfect one facet of their game to have professional success. Of course, Cav knew he was born to be a pure sprinter—the fastest man on two wheels—and all of Cav’s 34 Tour stages came against other talented riders born to be bunch sprinters. Yes, Merckx won mountain stages and time trials by minutes, but it was against other similar but less talented all-rounders. Cavendish took sprint after sprint—sometimes by handfuls of full bike lengths—against the other greatest sprinters that have ever lived. And over the course of 13 years, Cav has beat the best sprinters of 3 different generations of cycling.
Then there is the opportunity factor. I am not saying: “If Eddy Merckx is so versatile, why didn’t he win more?” But I am saying, Cav has had much more limited reasonable opportunities to win based off his skillset, and he has made the most of them. Going through the Tours Cav has competed in there have roughly been 70 stages that Cavendish had a realistic chance to win. With 34 wins he is batting around .500 ball for his career—and the wins came against tougher competition than what Merckx faced. Some years there were only five or even four, at most on a given Tour there were 9 realistic opportunities for Cav to win while Eddy Merckx really could have competed on every sort of terrain. Meanwhile, in the six Tours Merckx won stages combined there were about 150 stages available for him to win (I won’t even include the 1977 Tour which he rode and won no stages because the wheels of domination had by then fallen off). Even if we spot a supremely generous entire half of these as unrealistic to win due to GC tactics or strategic recovery or keeping powder dry, there were still 75 other opportunities that suited him. To win 34 of the 75 puts Merckx’s average at around .450, which is of course still amazing. But Cavendish’s average is higher even after all the spotting, and Cav’s wins were against more cream of the crop competition. Both feats are of course incredible, but I would say Cavendish’s 34 sprints is just a bit more exceptional and shall go down as the greatest accomplishment of specialized cycling.
The era of specialization produced someone who seemed to have won 7 Tours. An Italian sprinter who took 42 Giro flat stages, and dozens of similarly flat Tour and Vuelta stages. A Lion of Flanders who won 6 Cobbled Monuments, another Flandrien who won 7 Cobbled Monuments. That Flandrien’s Swiss archrival won 6 Cobbled Monuments, a Sanremo, and 4 Time Trial World Championships. And another German time-trialist matched the 4 Time Trial World Titles record after that. Do you see the pattern? They all racked up their counts at the one or two things they were good at—and pursued one World Championship that fully suited their characteristics, their exact rider-mold. And finally now, Cavendish has by brute-force specialization equaled one of the greatest feats of versatility. As I have laid out the case, this crown jewel feat of specialization has greatly impressed me, even though I love Range over Specialization. Now reading the tea leaves, the sacrificed animal’s entrails, the birds’ signs in the air, I dare believe and hope and bet this era of specialization is now complete with Cav’s specialization-pinnacle achievement. Throughout Cavendish’s career, the winds have been changing course: Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, and Vincenzo Nibali have all targeted and won all three Grand Tours. Peter Sagan has probably been the greatest pioneer in versatile Range as he rewrote, overhauled, and dominated at how to win the Green Points Jersey—of which he now holds the record; meanwhile he additionally competes across all the Classics and took three dissimilar World Championships right in a row. Philippe Gilbert needs but one Sanremo victory to be only the 4th rider to have won All Five Monuments. Alejandro Valverde has done his part winning a multitude of lumpy stages at all times of the calendar, many hilly Classics, finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours, and won the Vuelta a Espana outright. Primoz Roglic morphed from a pure time-trialist into a Grand Tour winner who can also hold his own or win hilly Classics and Monuments. And the 2021 Strade Bianche was a seminal showcase of Range: Mathieu Van Der Poel, Wout Van Aert, Julian Alaphilippe, Egan Bernal, Tadej Pogacar, Tom Pidcock, and—we can’t forget—Michael Gogl all mixing it up to win the most unique one-day race on the calendar. With my position defended that Cav’s specialization feat is greater than Merckx’s equal feat of versatility, I am now ready and happy to move onto the next thing. The era of specialization is ending on a high note with this Cavendish fairytale run in the twilight of his career. But I end now by opening a new can of worms to be kept tabs on for years to come. Already Wout Van Aert has taken Tour stages on the flat, in the crosswinds, in the high mountains, and surely someday soon in a Time Trial. Should Wout or another generational talent continue to take such diverse stage wins at the Tour de France…as soon as that rider gets 20 or even 17 wins, I will declare their stage count accomplishment more impressive than Merckx’s and Cav’s 34 record that was tied today.
Cycling Odysseys 