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All heads down, one up: Mark Cavendish can't believe it
Photo:
GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO / AFP
The city of Châteauroux has a famous son.
The actor Gérard Depardieu comes from the city of 50,000 in the heart of France.
But actually Châteauroux should adopt a second celebrity.
Mark Cavendish, the tireless British cycling star, should at least receive honorary citizenship of the city.
Four times the place was the finish line of the Tour de France, three times Cavendish won - the first time in 2008, the third time on Thursday yesterday.
On Tuesday, at the fourth stage of the tour, he was the fastest on the home straight, duping all the other sprint stars from Peter Sagan to Tim Merlier.
He has now achieved 32 daily successes on the tour, an incredible figure.
Only one was more successful in the history of the France Ribbon.
And that was the legend par excellence, Eddie Merckx, who triumphed 34 times.
It was already written off
Cavendish didn't want to hear anything about it at the finish: "Don't say the name," he rejected all Merckx comparisons, as if he didn't want to be named on the same level as the cycling icon. "I've just won a stage, and others work for it all their lives." But he can't defend himself on this tour, which so far is a throwback to the greats. Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutchman with the famous French grandfather Raymond Poulidor, wears the yellow jersey. Merckx is on everyone's lips thanks to Cavendish.
The man from the Isle of Man is now 36 years old, which in itself is not an unusual age for the sprinters, his long-standing rival André Greipel is still on the tour at the age of 38.
Still, not long ago Cavendish was one of the written offs.
Too many injuries, too many falls like the one when he broke his shoulder blade after a collision in a sprint with Peter Sagan on the 2017 Tour.
Rib fracture, broken collarbone - the fate of a sprint specialist, but at some point it's too much.
In addition, he had to do with a dragged glandular fever.
He hadn't won any victories for two and a half years, and in the autumn he was even without a contract and without a team.
Basically, the Briton was due for the end of his career.
Experts were wrong
The Belgian QuickStep team of team boss veteran Patrick Lefevere finally struck the veteran and signed him, the professional world saw this with skepticism.
Cycling Magazine called the commitment “clever,” but wrote in the same breath: “Will Mark Cavendish win rows again?
Probably not.
Maybe he won't be the first to cross a line once. "
The experts have already been wrong.
To save her honor: Even Cavendish couldn't believe it afterwards.
"It's unbelievable," he commented after his second day win, and it really is a little.
ARD co-commentator and ex-professional Fabian Wegmann had to admit: "I would never have thought that Cavendish would win another stage." And now there are even two, and the tour has only just started.
The mass sprint, this highly dangerous, fast-paced, highly complex form of the end of a stage, that has always been his world.
Cavendish has also won a one-day classic once, he triumphed at Milan-Sanremo in 2009, but otherwise it's the duels wheel to wheel, brought you to the top of the rest of the team, and then give everything to the finish line, with the handlebars swinging at 70 kilometers per hour, centimeter work, extremely susceptible to falls, as this tour has already shown again.
You have to be made for it, it was Erik Zabel, Mario Cipollini, Marcel Kittel, Alessandro Petacchi.
They're very special guys, and Cavendish is their king.
He's not called King Cav for nothing.
At 21 to T-Mobile
At the age of 21 he joined Team T-Mobile as a young professional, the great victory and doping time of the team was just over, Cavendish had to sign a paper in which he committed himself to an annual salary in order to be allowed to participate in the tour at all Pay a fine if caught doping.
He was the first professional to sign this at the time.
A year later, he dominated the sprints of the Tour de France, he celebrated four stage wins, although he gave up the tour before the first Alpine stage.
In 2009 he even scored six stage wins, and in 2010 five.
The total of 15 stage victories at the Giro d'Italia should be mentioned almost in passing.
Cavendish said on Wednesday, “If I win 50 more, I'll do it when I'm good enough for it. If not, then don't. ”Eddie Merckx will be a little restless. His consolation: Châteauroux is by no means another stage destination on this tour.