Britain’s Mark Cavendish (right) smiles before the fourth leg of the Tour de France in Nogaro, France on Tuesday. The best sprinter was eliminated from the race in the eighth stage on Saturday.
Thibault Camus/AP
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Thibault Camus/AP
Britain’s Mark Cavendish (right) smiles before the fourth leg of the Tour de France in Nogaro, France on Tuesday. The best sprinter was eliminated from the race in the eighth stage on Saturday.
Thibault Camus/AP
LIMOGES, France – Mark Cavendish will have to share the record for most career wins at the Tour de France.
Competing in his final season, the best sprinter was dropped from the race in the eighth leg on Saturday with a suspected broken collarbone.
Cavendish equals Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins on the 2021 Tour, 13 years after his first success, but was not picked last year.
This release is his last chance to be the outright record holder after he announced in May during the Giro d’Italia that he would retire from cycling at the end of this season. Cavendish finished Giro in style, winning the last leg in Rome’s historic center to crown the 17th stage victory on the Italian Grand Tour.
Known as “The Manx Rocket” because he’s from the Isle of Man, Cavendish finished second in the seventh leg on Friday.
The 38-year-old former world champion was hit at 64 km while riding in the back of the peloton at about 45 km/h (28 mph). TV images showed the veteran rider lying on the ground and clutching his right shoulder in pain.
Cavendish’s teammate, Gianni Moscon, said he had to brake hard because there was a frontal collision “and someone changed direction and he hit the rear wheel of the person in front and went down.”
“It’s pretty bad,” Mosconi added. “I stayed with him but he couldn’t continue the race so we had to go back to the race.”
Cavendish was taken to an ambulance for treatment and looked pale before announcing his withdrawal from the race.
Merckx amassed his victories during the 1960s and 70s, an era where his dominance was so great that he was nicknamed the “Cannibal”. Unlike Merckx, who won a record 5 Tour, Cavendish has never won and specializes in sprinting.
His speed, strength, and longevity among his fellow sprinters are second to none at the Tour.
“It’s sad that a legend ends the Tour like this,” said former world champion Mads Pedersen, who won Saturday’s stage in the all-around sprint. “For me, it’s been a pleasure to ride with Mark Cavendish. I’ve always had a good relationship with him in sailing. Hopefully I can do some of the last of the races that he did. .”
Cavendish became the fifth driver to quit this year after Enric Mas, Richard Carapaz, Jacopo Guarnieri and Luis Leon Sanchez, who were all disqualified. That number became six at the end of Saturday’s race when Belgian driver Steff Cras got caught up in another race and had to withdraw.
Cavendish was not selected for the Tour last year by his former Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team and joined the Astana-Qazaqstan team in January to extend his long career by one season, in the hope he He will have at least one more race victory.
Cavendish also twice won the green jersey of the best sprinter of the Tour de France. He won all three Grand Tours — Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, Spanish Vuelta — and became world champion in 2011.
“Really, really, sorry. Everyone wants to see him win one more,” said two-time Tour champion Tadej Pogacar.
