After the whole cycling world, be that friends, family or rivals, rejoiced as Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) achieved a record 35th stage win at the Tour de France in Saint Vulbas, perhaps the most important reaction was that of the great Eddy Merckx.
Cycling’s all-time greatest rider was, after all, the only man who had stood alongside Cavendish with a total of 34 Tour wins before yesterday’s history-making stage. Which was when the Manx Missile powered away from both the Tour’s sprint field to victory and from Merckx for sole ownership of the stage win record.
When Cavendish matched Merckx’s Tour de France stage win record of 34 in 2021, the front cover of L’Equipe read “Le Cannibale du Sprint”. This morning, the French paper went simply with ‘Mark Cavendish The Cannibal’.
However, despite the French newspaper lending the Brit Merckx’s famous nickname, there was only respect from the 79-year-old who responded to the feat on social media.
“Congratulations to Mark Cavendish on this historic achievement! Such a nice guy to break my record,” said Merckx on an Instagram story.
Merckx and Cavendish were, of course, vastly different in their methods, with the Belgian great taking wins across all stage types, be that mountain days or time trials, as he rode to the record-equalling total of five Tour de France GC wins.
Cavendish was quick not only to correct that it was “our record not his record” when asked to give a message to Merckx, but also pointed out that 35 is just a number and nothing to take the shine away from men’s cycling’s greatest rider of all time.
“I love Eddy, he’s always been super nice to me. It was our our record, not his record but it’s a number,” said Cavendish to VTM Nieuws. “It’s not taking anything from the great Eddy Merckx, it’s just a number. Eddy Merckx is Eddy Merckx.”
Merckx stayed true to his word from 2021 that he would congratulate Cavendish, despite his undying competitive nature even well into retirement, previously stating to La Gazzetta dello Sport that he “won’t lose any sleep over it.”
And it's surely that shared uber-competitive nature that brought him and Cavendish the most complete level of success. The Manxman even being at the 2024 Tour de France at 39 is a testament enough to his determination to win, especially after all he has been through from serious illness, depression and the crash and collarbone fracture on the 2023 Tour where the 35th looked so far away.
Cavendish and Merckx are now separated at the top of the Tour stage win leaderboard, but the Manx Missile certainly won’t be happy with just one now that he’s got it.
Today’s stage to Dijon is the first shot at 36 and it’s a number the cycling world hadn’t dared speak about… aside from Cavendish, clearly aware of the level he was at before yesterday’s win, who was dreaming of “36, 37, even 40 stages” before the race started. It wasn’t about beating Merckx to stand alone but, as it always has been, winning itself.
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