Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) rode into the historical past books on stage 5 of the 2024 Tour de France, claiming a record-breaking thirty fifth stage win on the French Grand Tour.
Cavendish crashed out of the Tour final 12 months, breaking his collarbone, however he opted to lengthen his profession for one more 12 months.
Previously tied with Eddy Merckx on 34 stage wins on the Tour de France, Cavendish’s first stage victory on the Tour got here in 2008 in Chateauroux, racing for Team Columbia. In that dash, he crossed the road forward of Spain’s Oscar Freire and Erik Zabel.
He took one other three levels that July, lastly reaching a complete of 34 Tour de France stage wins in 2021. A two-year hole then adopted earlier than the 39-year-old might add the record-breaking complete of 35 in 2024, the place he beat Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) into second whereas Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) completed third in Saint Vulbas.
Cavendish mentioned after the stage victory, “I’m a bit of bit in disbelief. Astana put an enormous gamble on this 12 months to verify we’re good on the Tour de France. My boss has executed it. It was an enormous gamble making an attempt to come back in and win at the least one stage. It was an enormous gamble for my boss, Alexander Vinokourov.
“It exhibits the subsequent bike riders what the Tour de France is, know it’s important to go all in. We’ve executed it. We labored precisely how we needed – how we constructed the crew, what we have executed with the tools, each element has been put particularly in direction of in the present day.
“You see what it means – we’re not going to be prime of the UCI rankings or something nevertheless it exhibits how large the Tour de France is.”
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Cavendish has claimed three victories this season, the primary within the ColombiaTour in February, and and he went on to take a stage within the Tour of Hungary in May. His final race was the Tour de Suisse in June the place there have been just about no alternatives for the sprinters, however which honed his climbing kind to get by the primary levels of the 2024 Tour.
The Briton now has 55 Grand Tour stage wins in his palmares, 35 within the Tour, 17 within the Giro d’Italia and three within the Vuelta a Espana. Another six alternatives are attainable on this 12 months’s Tour, beginning with stage 6 on Thursday.
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