These have been three days to remember for Mark Cavendish: a stage win, a day in the saddle proudly sporting the yellow jersey, and a second victory which hints that the Manxman is back to something approaching his imperious best as he came off André Greipel’s wheel in the final 100 metres here to snatch the 28th Tour stage win of his career by a fat tyre’s width. So narrow was the margin, and so late his final surge, that initially he was unsure that he had won the victory that takes him second in the all-time table of Tour stage winners, level with the five-times winner Bernard Hinault. Only Eddy Merckx is ahead of him now.
The numbers game matters little compared to the simple fact of winning any stage here, Cavendish said, although he added, “when I turned pro I didn’t ever dream of being mentioned in the same sentence as Hinault or Eddy Merckx. I would never compare myself to Hinault but having a number by my name which relates to something he has done blows my mind. I won’t stop here.”
Cavendish came round the final right-hand bend before the last uphill 200 metres to the line close behind Greipel, and had to make up almost two bike lengths once the German had begun his final effort. The German moved slightly to his left to make Cavendish’s way past slightly longer, and the Manxman closed so slowly that it seemed Greipel – last year’s dominant sprinter – would narrowly beat him to the line. In the final metres, Greipel began to “throw” his bike at the line, as sprinters do to gain a few extra centimetres, but Cavendish kept driving forwards for perhaps a pedal stroke longer. It was that tight.
As they crossed the line, it was Greipel who raised his arm in triumph – a mite half-heartedly perhaps – but Cavendish punched the air as well. The decision came a few minutes later. “I thought I’d got it, but you never know,” said Cavendish, who had not taken two pure bunch sprint stages in a single Tour for an entire Olympic cycle. That may be no coincidence, as in 2012 he came to the Tour after an intense build-up to the London Games, and this year he has, in his own words, “not wasted a single day,” of training towards Rio.
“The pictures on television don’t show how steep that finale was; if you didn’t get a run at it or if you hit out early someone was going to come from behind. I knew when Greipel went that he’d hit out earlier than he wanted to.
“I thought I’d come past him easily but he has got real balls and he went again. I got him with the lunge to the line, but it was touch and go.”
It came after a perfect build-up from a lead-out train which numbers only four, but including key elements such as his lead-out man Mark Renshaw and the experienced Bernhard Eisel, with the addition this year of a new directeur sportif, the Briton Roger Hammond, who was Cavendish’s mentor when he turned professional at T-Mobile in 2007.
Among the elite sprinters in the top 10 for the second time in three days was another British fast man, but one in his first Tour de France.
Dan McLay, a 24-year-old born in New Zealand, joined the French team Bretagne-Séché last year after several years racing as an amateur in Belgium, and has notched up wins this year in the Grand Prix de Denain and the Grand Prix de la Somme. Like Cavendish, McLay comes from a track background, winning the world junior madison championship in 2010 together with the current Orica professional Simon Yates, and this is a promising debut on a par with Cavendish’s nine years ago.
This was the first of two stages totalling 460 kilometres – almost 300 miles – that will take the Tour from the English Channel to Limoges, about half the length of France.
In the brave new world of made for TV Tours created by the current organiser, Christian Prudhomme, lengthy etapes de transition have largely been consigned to history in favour of shorter days in the saddle with more climbs and uphill finishes, understandably given that on the way here the peloton spent some 180km promenading in sumptuous countryside pockmarked with chateaux, the televisual sporting equivalent of Brideshead Revisited rather than Game of Thrones.
The pace was dictated by one man, Armindo Fonseca, a journeyman pro from the French squad Fortuneo-Vital Concept, prompted by two thoughts: his team’s plan is to get in escapes each day, and at 72km the stage crossed his home departement of Ille-et-Vilaine. Fonseca scurried away not long after the start in Granville and snaffled the King of the Mountains points on the climb at Villedieu-les-Poêles, a town legendary in western France for metal products which cover the whole spectrum from copper omelette saucepans to bells.
The cloche did not toll for Fonseca for over 200km southwards on the rural roads that run from Brittany into Anjou, he was permitted to gain several minutes’ lead within the first few kilometres, and the peloton deliberately opted to ride at almost precisely his speed to keep him just at arm’s length: close enough to be recaptured at will, distant enough to dissuade any other foolhardy spirits from trying to join him.
After the intensity of the opening weekend’s crosswinds and crashes, it seemed a welcome respite; “I thought of stopping for a coffee, saw a bar, but there wasn’t time,” said Peter Sagan, who retained the yellow jersey after crossing the line in fourth.
Predictably, it was Thomas Voeckler who finally ended the slow bicycle race as the intermediate sprint 181km into the stage drew near, linking up with Fonseca and prompting the peloton to speed up. At 237km the leg on Tuesday to Limoges is the longest day of the race; the finish scenario should be the same, but with a tougher run uphill to the line which might favour a lightweight sprinter such as the Frenchman Bryan Coquard.
