Mark Cavendish has never been a numbers man, but the statistics behind his 29 Tour de France stage wins speak volumes about his achievements in the world’s greatest bike race. No sprinter in the Tour’s history has been as consistent for as long as Cavendish, who began winning stages in 2008 and since then only once has he started the race and not won at least one stage; his fallow year, 2014, was when he fell on the opening stage in Harrogate and had to leave the race.
Sprinters on the Tour tend to flower briefly, which is why few of them have more than a dozen stage wins; Freddy Maertens, the only man in the past 40 years other than Cavendish to win more 12, managed his 15 in the space of three Tours – 1976, 1978 and 1981. The only other post-war fastman to win more than 20 is the Frenchman André Darrigade on 22, but Darrigade was a unique all‑rounder, as unique in his way as the five-times winners Bernard Hinault and Eddy Merckx, who amassed one victory after another en route to the overall title, year after year.
Cavendish has changed the way sprinters function in the Tour, bringing in a new era with an increased focus on aerodynamics, which, ironically enough, helped larger, less streamlined sprinters such as André Greipel and Marcel Kittel to compete with him and – for a brief while – to surpass him. “When I started, there were no guys putting out 1,000 watts, no aerodynamic bikes, no skinsuits, no aero helmets,” Cavendish said. “You can go faster now if you are heavy and powerful.”
Critically, he has managed to adapt to the most recent development: the high speeds mean that no single team can dominate the run-in to a sprint and those that do put together a lead-out train leave it later to hit the front, making the sprints increasingly chaotic. The current lack of structure has helped to give a new lease of life to Cavendish, who marries immense bike-handling skill born of his years on the track – it is no coincidence that he is the current Madison world champion – with rapid decision-making ability.
Here, his train went awol in a finale his lead-out man, Mark Renshaw, described as catastrophic. Dimension Data were unable to go past the Giant train and Chris Froome’s Team Sky, until, Renshaw said, the very last corner, when they broke through to put their leader on Kittel’s wheel. “It was slightly downhill, so I knew it was worth going early,” Cavendish said. “I had a bigger jump and knew I could use it if I stayed on his wheel.”
His third victory put the Manxman in the green jersey, but he concedes that it will eventually fall to Peter Sagan. “Once we get to the mountains, no one can beat him.”
For the first time, two British sprinters finished in the first three on a Tour stage; close behind Cavendish and just to his right came the 24-year-old Dan McLay, who served his apprenticeship in Belgium with the Lotto-Soudal under-23 team and turned professional with the unglamourous Bretagne‑Séché squad last year after winning a stage in the Tour de l’Avenir.
McLay shares Cavendish’s track background, but on paper his burly build makes him better suited to one-day Classics; he has scored wins this year in the GP Denain and GP de la Somme in northern France. However, in a highly promising debut he is outperforming riders of far greater experience with entire sprint trains dedicated to them, whereas his Fortuneo‑Vital Concept team cannot field the horsepower in the final kilometres.
As of Friday, however, the Tour is in the mountains. Wednesday’s leg through the Massif Central and Friday’s stage over the Col d’Aspin amount to the amuse-bouche and the starter before the main course begins on Saturday over four cols to the town of Luchon. As on Wednesday, the time gaps are unlikely to be definitive, but Sky and Movistar will be expected to make the running in the same way.
The stage from L’Isle Jourdain, west of Toulouse, to the Lac de Payolle – a tiny tourist base between the Aspin and Tourmalet cols – will gradually increase in intensity as the roads become progressively more rolling. The fight will reach a peak as the riders battle to be in the first 20 through the right-hand bend in the village of Arreau, which marks the foot of the first-category Col d’Aspin.
On a shorter, steeper climb, the yellow jersey holder, Greg van Avermaet, might be expected to make the most of his five‑minute lead, but as he said on Thursday:“Five minutes is a lot, but when the climbers get going, it is not much.”
