For Mark Cavendish the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium started with a walk of honour through the raised wheels of his fellow professional cyclists and then finished amid a huge roar from the crowd. The winner of a record 35 stages of the French Grand Tour got to throw his hands in the air to celebrate victory one last time on Sunday.
Cavendish, who confirmed on the eve of the showcase event, that it would be his last time pinning on a number, got the fairytale ending to his cycling career and so did the spectators that came out to watch.
The breaks had flown from the very start of the race that brought a taste of the Tour de France to Southeast Asia, but it all came down to that much anticipated sprint battle in the intense heat and humidity of Singapore. As celebrations erupted for the retiring Astana Qazaqstan rider when he crossed the line, with the cheers reverberating from one side of the circuit to the other, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin Deceuninck) crossed the line in second place. A closing Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Soudal) was third.
“I’m quite emotional actually," said Cavendish in the broadcast interview immediately after the race. "I realised in the last 5 laps that it was the last 15km of my career and when I passed the flamme rouge for the last time in my career I felt that, but I was so on the limit – the heat here is not nice for me you know,” he added, eliciting a laugh from the crowd waiting with anticipation for him to appear on the podium.
He was celebrating a final race and a final win far from home but in front of an audience that relished the chance to provide a fitting farewell at an event that was helping to spread enthusiasm for a race that had been so pivotal in his career of more than 18 years. What's more, he did it among a group of riders that included many who will likely shape the future of the Tour de France.
"What an incredible day to share my last race with those riders, with the future of sprinting, with this next generation of sprinters," Cavendish told reporters after stepping down from his final podium as a professional racer after a career where he visited it so many times.
De Lie, who stood on the podium alongside Cavendish, was taking on his first Tour de France and first Singapore Criterium as the Manxman took on his last.
"He is a legend of the cycling world and I'm proud to be there to see this with my own eyes," De Lie told Cyclingnews after the event.
The stage
The criterium, which ended with the dream scenario, was run on a 2.3km course, taking off from the Connaught Drive start/finish line alongside Esplanade Park, and moving up toward Empress Place before turning left over the smaller of two crossing points of the Singapore River. It was then another sharp bend onto Esplanade Drive, where the peloton again crossed the river and headed up the road, which usually carries around ten lanes of traffic.
Two tight hairpins took the riders up and back, creating three lanes of racing on the one stretch, and then moved past the spiky domed facade of Theaters on the Bay – nicknamed the Durian – onto Stamford Road. After that, it was back to the finishing straight, where after 25 laps of racing and 57.5km the final sprint of the criterium unfolded.
However, before that could occur, there was a one-lap team time trial to start the action. A thumbs up from Mark Cavendish and a loud rumble heard through Esplanade Park accompanied the departure of his Astana Qazaqstan team as it set out in the race against the clock. The dominant Terengganu Cycling Team came out on top in the starting effort, followed by Nusantara and Thailand Continental Cycling Team.
Then the main event began with Cavendish heading to the start line through the cycling equivalent of a guard of honour before setting off onto a course that in just a little over two kilometres managed to highlight the juxtapositions of the tropical city-state in Southeast Asia.
In some sections the dramatically imposing three-tower Marina Bay Sands, joined on top by what has been labelled a skypark, was prominently in view, while another part swept by the neo-Palladian Empress Place, with the building on the north bank of the Singapore River which has been declared a national monument completed in 1867 and on race day its expansive lawn turned into a popular Sunday afternoon picnic spot.
Once the racing got underway the many riders flying off the front included Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal) along with Vincenzo Nibali (TDF Legends) and also his teammates in the event Primož Roglič and Chris Froome. It wasn't long before the riders, who were soaked by the rain in Saitama, were soaked with sweat instead as while the day had started with thunderstorms by the afternoon the sun was delivering a stinging heat.
The sprinters' teams, too turned up the heat on those out front, as this was not an event that was going to come down to anything but a bunch charge, particularly when there was a fairytale ending at stake.
"I could see the laps counting down, I knew they were the last 25 laps of my career, that last 15 laps of my career, the last ten laps, the last three laps, last lap and then the last kilometre it was nice, I felt every bit of it," said Cavendish.
Through the last corner, Philipsen was out front and on the charge before Cavendish leapt to the front.
The love for cycling that started when the now 39-year-old began racing as a boy on the Isle of Man turned into a professional racing career and finished with a victory on another island halfway around the world.
However, that faraway final race certainly didn't mean there was any shortage of people to celebrate with.
When asked what's next Cavendish replied: “I’m going to dinner and I’m going to have a few drinks with my teammates. I’m incredibly lucky to have a great group of boys here from Astana Qazaqstan with me – some friends as well as teammates – and I want to go and celebrate with the riders, with my friends, with my wife in Singapore.”
