The 2024 Tour de France was only one hour old when Mark Cavendish was already in trouble. He had come here to create more history, to win a record 35th stage, but the heat, the humidity and the viscous climbs in the Italian Apennines were combining to make his day hell. There were fears, genuine and not overexaggerated, that the 39-year-old would miss the time cut on the very first day. That was not in the script.
As the hours slowly passed, and he and his Astana-Qazaqstan team slowly ticked off each of the seven climbs, the prognostic improved, and he eventually crossed the line almost 40 minutes behind the stage winner Romain Bardet, but crucially 10 minutes ahead of the time cut.
Twenty days on, with a triple-header of 2,000+ metre peaks to navigate, and Cavendish – his stage win 35 already achieved two weeks prior – was again suffering. He’s done a lot of that in this year’s Tour: he’s second-last on GC to his teammate Davide Ballerini, has finished in the last group on the road on five occasions, and on stage 19 he was the last man across the line, almost 45 minutes adrift of winner Tadej Pogačar. But, once again, the Manx Missile had staved off yet another time cut.
“It was pretty relentless today,” he told Cycling Weekly at the finish of stage 19 in Isola 2000. “It’s always just put your head down and go hard.”
Surviving the succession of mountains is “more important” than doing what he’s spent 16 years being the best in the world at doing: winning Tour de France stages. His 35th, he’s adamant, wouldn’t have come without the sacrifice of his teammates.
“You saw that first day in Florence, that was where we won our stage,” he said. “It was that day. Without that, without the boys doing that… That’s what brings a group together, that’s what a group is, more than a lead-out.”
Cavendish survived the first day in Italy, but his teammate Michele Gazzoli did not. Since then, he’s lost a further three colleagues, leaving his team with just four riders, each of them committed to ensuring that he makes it to Nice.
“I am so proud of them,” he continued. “Them boys, they’re really incredible. Super, super just with me [the whole way]. I am so lucky to have them. I’m so tired. I’ve got to go rest otherwise I’m not doing them any justice.”
Current lanterne rouge Ballerini, part of each of Cavendish’s last five victories, admitted that the Briton “had some bad moments sometimes” during stage 19 and the preceding high mountain days, but that the pacing was always under control. “We always try to stay on the plan, stay on the [required] watts, and the important thing is to keep eating,” the Italian said.
Two stages remain, one more day in the Alps on Saturday, and then a mountainous time trial on Sunday starting in Monaco and finishing in Nice, but Cavendish can all but celebrate: barring disaster, he will finish his eighth Tour, of the 15 he’s started.
“I had it in my mind already that Cav could do it,” Ballerini added. “We saw him, he is going really good, and he keeps fighting with his head because he wants to arrive in Nice – and he will make it.”
