“It’s not over yet.” Mark Cavendish, who had announced his retirement for the end of the season, will finally continue one more season to try to beat the record for stage victories in the Tour de France. This was indicated by his Astana team on Wednesday October 4.
“It’s not over yet,” says a brief video posted by Astana on social media. The Kazakh team indicated that it would publish a press release today to confirm that the British rider would begin an eighteenth professional season next year. Aged 38, the man from Man, considered by his peers as the best sprinter of all time, announced last May, surrounded by his family, that he was going to bow out at the end of 2023. But that was before that he did not abandon, because of a broken collarbone in a fall, during the 8th stage of the Tour de France.
The “Cav”, who has 162 victories to his name, aspires to beat one of the most coveted records in cycling, that of the number of stage victories on the Grande Boucle which he currently shares with Eddy Merckx (34 successes). From Châteauroux in 2008 to Carcassonne in 2021, Cavendish has won stages on the Tour almost every year but always in the same way: in a bunch sprint. If he wins a 35th stage in 2024, he will be alone in the world ahead of the King of the Belgians.
“He can win 35 or 36 stages if he wants, that doesn’t change anything for me. I really don’t think that has anything to do with it, right? It seems to me that I also took the opportunity to win five Tours and wear the yellow jersey 96 times! Don’t compare me to Cavendish, please, because it means nothing. But I am very happy for him because he is a very great runner. And when we see where he’s come back from, after difficult years, hats off! I have a lot of admiration for him” Eddy Merckx told us in 2021 when the “Cav” equaled his fabulous record.
Refusing to let his career end due to injury, Cavendish will return to the Astana team led by his former teammate Alexandre Vinokourov who reached out to him last winter after the disappearance of the B&B Hotels team with which he was on about to sign.
