The Tour is made of legends, feats and records. They are little stories that are written and narrated every day. Those stories, stacked up, year after year, create and grow the most important cycling race in the world. But there was a mark, a feat, that was thought to last, that would never grow old. These are Eddy Merckx's 34 stage victories, which no one had come close to since he implanted them in 1975, in Auch, winning in a time trial. It was the last time for him.
But since July 9, 2021, Mark Cavendish has that record between his eyebrows. At Châteauroux two years ago, the Manx Briton matched Merckx and is now one win away from beating him. Since then the Belgians, whatever team they are, have conspired to protect the myth of the Cannibal.
On the Champs Elysées that year it was Wout van Aert who frustrated Cavendish from achieving a historic stage. The British sprinter even changed teams, angry because in 2022 they did not bring him to the Tour, depriving him of aspiring to the record. He left Quick Step -Belgian parent, by the way- and is now in Astana. But in the first two massive arrivals of this edition, the 38-year-old veteran cyclist has not been able to achieve the long-awaited victory either. Jasper Philipsen, from Alpecin and Belgian, has not allowed it.
Cavendish was sixth in Bayonne and fifth on the Circuit Paul Armagnac de Nogaro. He is getting closer. Little by little to the first place. But he still isn't over the great Eddy Merckx. Belgium, sometimes divided between the Flemings and the Walloons, has united around its great symbol to prevent it.
The arrival at a speed circuit, designed for motorcycles and cars, was a perfect setting for the Isle of Man car. Eight hundred meters of straight. Flat, without slope, and wide. With an unbeatable asphalt. It was normal for Cavendish, who had just won the last stage of the Giro in Rome, to look at the map and think that it was his great opportunity, that he could not miss it.
However, arrival was not as clean as expected. Jakobsen and Guarnieri fell first. Then Mohoric and Luis León Sánchez, the British teammate and who practically says goodbye to his thirtieth great lap, went to the ground. Finally, in a third incident, with the sprint launched, Zingle and Waernskjold collided. Too many nerves in this new fashion of putting cyclists on circuits. The Vuelta did it in Assen, the Giro in Imola (also the Road World Championship) and now the Tour in Nogaro.
But Philipsen is one of those who never stops. At 25 years old, he is still not afraid. Van Aert verified it in Bayonne, who, about to be a father, preferred not to risk and did not force himself to sneak through the fences. And best of all, Philipsen has Mathieu van der Poel at his service. The winner of Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix, a star, doesn't mind sacrificing himself for the triumph of a teammate.
