by In the last few months, every aspect of Mark Cavendish’s life has been transformed on the Tour de France. Specifically, stage five of the Tour de France. Specifically, the last 500m of stage five of the Tour de France. Every pedal stroke in training, every bite of food, every minuscule part of his equipment was calibrated to win one more stage.
“I think, not only as a sports person, but in anything you need a goal, a goal, a reason to commit to working hard,” says Cavendish. He is speaking on Monday morning from his hotel on the French Riviera, his voice a little hoarse from the night before.
“I always won another one, what got me out of bed in the morning, what got me on the bike, what made me do that extra half hour, what made me not have that extra fry left at the children eat, you know what I did. mean?”
He can still picture the final moments of that 35th win: weaving through the pack, surfing on wheels, leaping on German rider Pascal Ackermann and using his slide like a catapult to launch into clear air . Suddenly he was in charge, head down, hurtling to the line.
“Life has taught me enough to never take anything for granted, whether it’s in a bike race or off, so you keep going as hard as you can and hope you can hang on.”
He remembers the moment he knew he had made it, the wash of relief that it was over.
“When the painting starts before the finish line – the big advertising painted on the road – you know. You know from experience: if there is no one next to you there, you win.”
Cavendish is sitting on a shaded terrace as teammates and family around him. “For the minute it’s the same Monday as every Monday after the Tour de France,” he laughs. “I would never touch my bike. I wake up with my family, do some media and enjoy being out of the bubble – not just the past three weeks but the bubble of the past few months. You are with some great people but you are focused on one thing which is wanting to go fast on a bike, and it takes a little time to decompress from that. On the first day you have to enjoy the beauty of doing the f*** you want to do.”
He enjoyed a late night with his Astana teammates, over dinner and a few drinks as they shared stories of the past three weeks. Cavendish does not like to draw attention but that was the reason, and he gave a speech thanking them for their sacrifice.
I dreamed of riding the Tour de France as a child and I have to do it
Mark Cavendish
“There were definitely some hard points, days when we were alone in the mountains as a unit trying to get through,” he says. “I say ‘as a unit’ as if I had a lot to do with it. It was more like my boys were riding in the valley so I could save my energy for the hill, and they pushed and pushed and then paced me up the climb.”
On those long mountain slogs in the sweltering heat they would cross the line together, a band of brothers who were under bridges coming just in the nick of time, the broom wagon escaped for another day. “It was selfless work, but hard work. It was very special.”
On the final day in Nice, Cavendish finally enjoyed the ride. Stage 21 on the Champs-Elysées has usually been a day of pressure and anticipation in recent years, but this time the race ended with an inconclusive time trial outside Paris. Cavendish took in the moment and his family embraced him at the end.
“Most of the peloton get the Champs-Elysées but you can’t as a sprinter. I really soaked in the last day, soaked in the emotions of finishing the Tour. Fifteen Tours, and that was the first time I felt that.”
He confirmed it would be his last Tour de France. All that dedication, that focus, all those french fries denied reason. If he didn’t win that sprint in Saint-Vulbas, if he was still level with Eddy Merckx on 34 stage wins the day after the Tour ended, would he have wanted to get another one? Could it be gone yet?
“It’s a good question,” he says, before a long pause. “I don’t know but I feel complete.”
Cavendish’s new record of 35 wins looked impossible to achieve on July 3 when he took stage five. When the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar, congratulated him on the achievement, Cavendish joked with a hint of menace: “Don’t beat him,” and Pogacar smiled back: “I won’t.”
Pogacar then had 12 Tour stages, but three weeks is a long cycle and five more have since been added. Pogacar is 17 – at the same age, Cavendish was 15 – and it is not so great to think that the Slovenian could one day come close.
“Everything is possible,” says Cavendish. “That’s the beauty of sport. If someone is inspired to achieve something and they succeed in achieving it, it inspires someone else to come and achieve more.”
It will last for at least ten years. Now, finally, Cavendish stands alone.
“I’m proud and I’m happy. I’ve made incredible memories with incredible people, doing a sport I love. I can only be grateful. I dreamed of riding the Tour de France as a child and I got to do it and I managed to be successful in it. And I had fun along the way.”
