The towns changed but the feeling never really did. From Châteauroux to Carcassonne, Mark Cavendish would scarcely have descended from the podium before his thoughts were already slowly turning from that day’s bouquets to the next day’s pressures. For sixteen years, a Tour de France stage win was eaten bread soon forgotten.
There was rarely any time to savour the taste. The build-up to the most recent stage win had been interminable, from late in the 2021 Tour to the opening week of this year’s race. In between, Cavendish left one team and his career survived the collapse of another.
He missed selection for one Tour then crashed out of the next. He announced his retirement last year only to walk it back for one last go on the carousel. Cavendish’s victory in Saint-Vulbas last week gave him an outright hold on the record for Tour stage wins he had shared with Eddy Merckx.
For three years, the number ‘35’ had been attached to him as a burden whether he cared to carry it or not. Now, by surpassing Merckx, one television reporter joked, Cavendish had ‘completed’ cycling. This victory must surely have hit differently to all the others.
The itch must finally have been scratched. Well, yes and no. It’s the afternoon of the first rest day of the Tour, and Cavendish is sitting outside the Novotel in Orléans, where his family have visited him for lunch.
He has achieved what he set out to do at this race, but there is still distance left to run until Nice. The Tour.