The street to Mark Cavendish’s record-breaking thirty fifth stage win on the Tour de France ran by means of Greece. Vasilis Anastopoulos rejoined Cavendish’s entourage this season having beforehand labored with him at QuickStep, and the Manxman spent a hefty portion of his build-up to the Tour coaching on his coach’s native roads.
Indeed, Cavendish has spent a lot of the 2024 marketing campaign away from dwelling, with Anastopoulos introducing prolonged stints of altitude coaching to the Astana-Qazaqstan rider’s preparation, beginning with a month-long stint in Colombia that included the Tour Colombia.
“It’s been a number of work,” Anastopoulos instructed reporters moments after Cavendish had gained stage 5 of the Tour in Saint Vulbas. “We began with our coaching camps already from December, and I believe in December and January, he spent solely 4 days at dwelling. We went to Colombia, and we labored actually arduous, and he had his first stage win there.”
Cavendish’s preliminary plans had been interrupted by the sickness he suffered on the UAE Tour, with rides in some Belgian Classics scratched from his programme in late March. The Tour of Turkey was added to his schedule, and he later raced on the Tour of Hungary and Tour de Suisse, in addition to taking in a stint of coaching at altitude in Sierra Nevada. His basecamp, nevertheless, was in Greece with Anastopoulos.
“We needed to utterly change our plans and begin once more, however we had been by no means in panic,” Anastopoulos mentioned.
It certainly helped that, not like at his earlier groups, Cavendish had no obligation to combat for his Tour place at Astana, who had constructed their crew for July expressly round him.
“At the start of April, Mark got here to Greece with me,” Anastopoulos mentioned. “He had three months in Greece in between Turkey, Hungary and Suisse. We skilled day by day collectively, believing within the course of. I can let you know it was not a straightforward one, however we by no means stopped believing that this might come true.”
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Cavendish’s nous introduced him into place through the frantic finale of stage 5, however the 39-year-old additionally produced a outstanding flip of velocity to say stage victory forward of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), the person favoured to vacuum up dash victories on this 12 months’s Tour.
Anastopoulos insisted that he anticipated as a lot after poring over the information from Cavendish’s closing coaching bloc forward of the Tour.
“The knowledge I had instructed me was able to doing that,” he mentioned. “He got here again to Greece instantly after the Tour de Suisse, and we did dash work for the entire week due to all of the climbs he had finished earlier than.”
The greater fear, Anastopoulos admitted, was how contemporary Cavendish would arrive on the bunch sprints of this Tour after a most demanding preliminary part in Italy. Cavendish suffered from heatstroke on the robust opener to Rimini and he additionally needed to negotiate the Col du Galibier on stage 4.
“Our greatest problem was these three days in Italy,” Anastopoulos mentioned. “The first day, he was struggling due to the warmth, however we had been by no means in a panic, we managed issues.”
“On the Galibier stage, I believe we did the right plan to reach within the time restrict with out spending an excessive amount of, Even when the gruppetto went away on the final climb, we instructed him to remain calm and observe his personal watts, the watts we had predicted beforehand, to be able to arrive as contemporary as potential for as we speak’s stage.”
Cavendish gained his first Tour stage in 2008, and he would clock up 25 victories within the race earlier than his thirtieth birthday. By the age of 31, his working tally was as much as 30 Tour victories, however sickness would blight his profession within the years after his four-stage win haul in 2016.
After showing getting ready to retirement within the winter of 2020, Cavendish was handed a lifeline by QuickStep. When Sam Bennett’s knee harm unexpectedly opened up a slot within the Tour choice, Cavendish responded by successful 4 levels and the factors classification.
He equalled Eddy Merckx’s report of 34 Tour stage wins in Carcassonne that 12 months, however he missed out on the possibility to surpass it on the Champs-Élysées. Left out of QuickStep’s crew in 2022, Cavendish joined Astana final season, later asserting it might be his closing 12 months as an expert. He walked again that call after crashing out of the Tour, opting to come back again for one final tilt at that elusive thirty fifth win.
“He was all the time beneath stress,” Anastopoulos mentioned. “Everybody was all the time speaking about 35 as soon as he introduced he was using for yet one more season. You can not think about the stress this man was beneath. Enormous stress. But he’s a terrific champion and solely champions can deal with this stress.
“You noticed as we speak why he’s an enormous champion. He’s 39 years previous. Most of the blokes thought he wasn’t going to make it. He proved them improper one time in 2021 after which he proved everyone improper once more in 2024. He’s a phenomenon.”
Although Cavendish has achieved his said objective, Anastopoulos dismissed any notion that the rest of the Tour could be a lap of the honour for the Manxman as he bids farewell to the race.
“No, we’re not going to cease,” he mentioned. “Tomorrow is one other probability. We need to win as a lot as potential. That’s why we can not cease. Our objective is to succeed in Nice – not Paris, sadly – and rejoice there. We need two or three extra wins earlier than he can cease.”
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