Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) now stands alone among Tour de France stage winners. The 39-year-old Manxman sprinted to his 35th career Tour stage win on Wednesday’s stage 5, putting him ahead of Eddy Merckx with a new record for all-time stage wins at the Tour.
Cavendish deftly navigated a messy bunch kick in Saint-Vulbas, launching off of the wheel of Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) with 150 meters to go. He quickly surged to the front and held off Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceunick) and Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) to take a convincing victory.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) finished safely in the peloton to maintain his grip on the overall lead.
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How it happened
- The profile had the sprinters’ teams committed to setting up a bunch kick on the day, leaving little chance that the early breakaway duo of Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies) and Clément Russo (Groupama-FDJ) would stay clear. The gap was kept at a little over four minutes for the early goings of the stage before Lidl-Trek and Alpecin-Deceuninck collaborated to bring the break back, making the catch with about 35 km to go.
- Intermittent rain made for slick roads in eastern France, and the day was not without incident. At one point, Pogačar himself very narrowly avoided some road furniture, causing a crash behind him, while Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) hit the deck on the finishing straight in the chaotic dash for the line.
- Several sprinters’ teams battled for position in the last few kilometers. DSM Firmenich-PostNL led into the last 800 meters, and then Ryan Gibbons (Lidl-Trek) hit the front, leading through the last bend in the road. Ackermann launched with 200 meters to go but Cavendish immediately pounced, surging past the German to the head of affairs.
- Philipsen opened up his sprint behind, but did not come especially close to shutting down Cavendish, who celebrated a record-setting win as he crossed the line.
“The boys improvised and got me there in the best position and I shot onto whatever train was going.”
—Mark Cavendish after his win
Brief analysis
- The final sprint on stage 5 ended up being more chaotic than might have been expected on a relatively uncomplicated approach to the line. Cavendish was left to freelance his way through the chaos, and he did that to perfection, weaving through rivals as he moved up. At one point, he skillfully went around Philipsen and then pulled in front of last year’s green jersey winner at a pivotal moment when speeds were high.
- DSM Firmenich gave way to Lidl-Trek’s Gibbons with some 400 meters to go but sprinter Pedersen was not in position to take advantage of his lead-out rider. Instead, other sprinters all launched in quick succession.
- Cavendish jumped off of Ackermann’s wheel and then he powered from right to left in the road. Philipsen put himself into Cavendish’s slipstream but he never came close to coming around the Manxman, whose combination of speed and positioning delivered him to a clear 35th career stage victory.
- As Ronan Mc Laughlin detailed the other day, Cavendish went all-in on aero tweaks in his quest for 35. Today’s win saw him leave the “trip strip” partial shoe covers on the team bus, but he did employ the new Biemme aero suit; deeper, 60 mm Vision Metron wheels; and Elite’s aero bottles.
Up next
Stage 6 will take the peloton 163.5 km from Mâcon to Dijon and since a Cat 4 just 10 km into the stage is the only categorized climb of the day, it should be another opportunity for the sprinters. After a roundabout just inside the final kilometer, they will have a straight run to the line for the last several hundred meters. The speeds will be high.
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