Carcassonne (France): Mark Cavendish made his place in the Pantheon cycling by equaling the record of the Belgium Great Eddy Merckx from 34 Tour de France won when his amazing Renaissance continued in a brutal way on Friday.
Briton benefited from some of the perfect work from the faster fraud-out train on the last kilometer to claim the fourth victory on this year’s tour after 219 kilometers between Nimes and Carcassonne at the 13th stage.
His last lead-out, Dane Michael Morkov took second place in Bunch Sprint with Belgium Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) who returned third.
Slovenia Tadej PoGaCar maintains a yellow leader jersey as a whole.
“The boys were extraordinary, I couldn’t believe it.
I was so at the end, a little uphill, Balle (Team Mate Davide Ballerini) was there, and then (Spain Ivan Garcia) Cortina went and Morkov took it back,” Cavendish said, who has not taken part in the tour since 2018 and has struggled with results in the past three years.
It was a nervous final because Cavendish seemed to be leaning towards other motorists when he was a jockey for a position with about two kilometers to leave.
“I have a person who comes and really a safe way to use your head, but I have to watch it,” Manxman was 36 years old, who hadn’t won the stage on a tour since 2016 before this year, explained.
Asked about Merckx’s Note, Cavendish said: “I didn’t realize, it was still winning at the Tour de France.” My dream as a child is to win one stage at the Tour de France and I work very hard for it.
If one of my victories can inspire children to ride Tour de France that’s the most meaningful to me.
“While Cavendish has claimed his victory in the Sprint at the end of the flat stage, Merckx won in all fields.
He also won a record of five Tour de France titles, three green shirts for classification points and won the mountain classification twice in seven tours between 1969 and 1977 “There is no driver who can compare with Eddy Merckx,” Cavendish said.