It wasn’t the Champs-Élysées, but it was a fitting kind of a place to sign off all the same. Mark Cavendish had passed this road before as a callow young man and won, beating Robbie McEwen to the line to win his fourth stage of the 2008 Tour de France. Now, sixteen years and 31 victories later, he returned to Nîmes’ Boulevard Allende on Tuesday for what was almost certainly his final sprint as a Tour rider.
Cavendish’s relationship with this race had already enjoyed its fairytale ending with his victory in Saint-Vulbas in the opening week, but a sprinter always dreams of producing an encore. After the music on the podium stops, the needle returns to the start of the song set once more. On stage 16, Cavendish set out aiming to bang out one of the greatest hits in the finishing straight. Once more with feeling.
