Mark Cavendish has set the gold standard for Tour de France sprinters and in the peloton he's already revered as one in a bullion.
But if the Manx missile wins a record 35th stage on cycling's ultimate test of endurance and power, he will no longer belong merely to the ranks of royalty on two wheels. Cavendish will be the greatest of all time. When they compile Le Tour's greatest hits album, he admits: “I want my name in that book.”
He has no worries on that score. Go past Eddy Merckx, the Belgian legend with whom he currently shares the record of 34 stage wins, and Cavendish will be on the front cover.
When the peloton sets off from Bibao on Saturday, 16 years after his first ride on the Tour de France, he will be chasing greatness - a record for the ages which will make him untouchable as he rides into the sunset.
Cavendish, who will retire at the end of the season, has already unfurled one fairytale finish on a Grand Tour this year, winning his last-ever stage on the Giro d'Italia in Rome five weeks ago.
And for the romantics, it would knock Hans Christian Andersen into a cocked hat if he took his final curtain on Le Tour with a fifth victory on the Champs Elysees, where he won four years in a row from 2009-12, on July 23.
But such is the nature of bunch sprints, and the anxiety which can turn the Tour's first week into a rolling maul, that there are no guarantees he will leave Merckx behind.
For a start, Cavendish is 38. He will have to summon an almighty rage against the fading shafts of youth to be first under the transponder one more time.
A posse of sprint rivals, notably Jasper Philipsen, Fabio Jakobsen, Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen, Caleb Ewan and Biniam Girmay, are not going to sit up and form a guard of honour for him.
When Cavendish had a chance to go past Merckx's record in Paris two years ago, Van Aert had other ideas. And although Cav's team, Astana Qazaqstan, have brought back his favourite lead-out man, Mark Renshaw, as a consultant, bunch sprints are won on the tarmac, not the team bus.
Cavendish warned: “This race gives the most incredible emotions, but there's no room for sentimentality. I know it's my last one but it's still the same – I have a job to do. You can appreciate the moments of sentiment later."
But he is well aware of that history beckons - and he wants to claim his place in it.
“If there’s a book of all the greats in cycling, I want my name in that book,” he told Eurosport. “That was what I wanted from my career - to be talked about in the same breath as those riders.
“I’m so lucky to be in this exclusive club of Tour de France stage winners. There’s not that many of us.
“For every day that I’ve raced the Tour de France, I’ve won one of every six stages. It’s different to everything else. It’s been my life, it’s been my career.”
At his pre-race media conference in Bilbao, Cavendish was asked what it would mean to break the stages record outright. After a protracted silence, timed at 32 seconds, he struggled to find the words which would do the achievement justice. “In all honesty, I don’t know,” he finally answered. “I just want to try and win as much as I can. I’m sorry.”
This observer was lucky enough to be a passenger in the T-Mobile support vehicle following Cavendish through the streets of London, thronged by up to two million people, in 2007 on his maiden Tour de France ride, a five-mile time trial prologue.
The crowds were so vast it was like being squeezed through a tube of toothpaste. Some 15 years, a world champion's Rainbow Jersey from the 2011 road race, Olympic silver in Rio and 2011 Sports Personality of the Year tripod camera trophy later, it would be incredible if Cavendish added that 35th Tour de France stage win to his roll of honour.
No toothpaste known to mankind would be required to burnish that smile if he does it.
