'It's not even a bike race, it's the Tour de France' - Mark Cavendish on an emotional close to the season, and maybe his career

Astana Qazaqstan Team's British rider Mark Cavendish celebrates with his family at the end of the 21st and final stage of the 111th edition of the Tour de France cycling race, a 33,7 km individual time-trial between Monaco and Nice, on July 21, 2024. (Photo by Laurent Cipriani / POOL / AFP) (Photo by LAURENT CIPRIANI/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Even sitting nearly 10,000km away from France, in a hotel in Japan there is no escaping the power of the Tour de France

Fans wait outside the doors of the lobby trying to catch an autograph from their cycling heroes who are out for the Tour de France Saitama CriteriumMark Cavendish taking centre stage among a lustrous list of assembled stars as the Astana Qazaqstan rider lines up at the event for perhaps the last time in his career.

Simone Giuliani
Australia Editor

Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.