'We did what we set out to do at this Tour de France' – No encore for Mark Cavendish in last bunch sprint in Nîmes

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.

The exposed run through Herault has produced echelons in the past, but this was a day of relative calm. With the Tour finishing in Nice rather than Paris this year due to the Olympic Games, this was the last chance for the sprinters, and there was never any prospect that the fast men would be denied here.

The inevitable bunch sprint duly arrived, and Cavendish thrust himself into the maelstrom one last time on a fraught run-in that saw green jersey Biniam Girmay among the fallers. Somewhere along the line, his Astana-Qazaqstan train was bumped off its preferred track. Cavendish still made it safely to his destination, but not at the head of the race. He had to settle for 17th place as Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) cruised to his third victory.

On crossing the finish line, Cavendish made his way for his team bus. He climbed aboard to shower and change, while reporters and television crews kept vigil outside. In those early Tours, Cavendish media scrums could be occasionally fraught affairs, with reporters straining to catch a soundbite from the enfant terrible of sprinting. The atmosphere was altogether more tranquil here, at least until a clutch of fans began pushing their way into the assembled group.

Some nudged their children forward as an advance party in an attempt to prise the prime real estate from the television crews. Broadcasters enjoy special privileges in the roped-off mixed zone at the finish line, but the bus paddock remains a contested space. The jostling at least passed the time until Cavendish emerged from the bus to talk reporters through his final sprint as a Tour rider.

“We were pretty well positioned coming into the final,” Cavendish said, the scrum tightening around him as he spoke. “A lot of teams had it together today and you could really see that. It’s just that some of those roundabouts were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and when you lose momentum, that’s it. Some guys get through and there are obviously other guys who don’t.

“I heard some guys came down. I think Girmay came down, maybe. The most important thing is they’re ok, and everyone’s through safely. I haven’t seen much, I’ve just seen a little clip, but it looks like Alpecin got it perfect with Van der Poel and Jasper again, so congratulations to them. Yeah, another sprint, I guess.”

Winning and losing

In the middle of it all, Cavendish hit upon the central truism of bunch sprinting. “Somebody’s got to win, a lot of people have to lose,” he said. For most of his cycling life, the Manxman hasn’t had much truck with losing, and it’s striking that his 35 victories on the Tour have been accompanied by only four second-place finishes and five third-place finishes.

At times, it was all or nothing, and that trend has continued in this, his final Tour. Aside from his victory in Saint-Vulbas, Cavendish’s only other top-10 finish came in Villeneuve-sur-Lot on stage 12, when he was later relegated to 68th by the commissaires. In Nîmes, Cavendish had essentially already lost his shot at sprinting for the win before he reached the finishing straight. So it goes.

“Everyone has the same idea, but there’s only a certain bit of road,” he said. “You get it right sometimes, you don’t get it right sometimes. That’s the nature of it.”

Cavendish got it right more often than not in sprints over the years, of course, and missing out on victory here takes nothing from his final Tour. Although he has intimated that the record itself wasn’t his real motivation to keep racing past his 39th birthday, he had already got what he wanted from this race when he streaked to victory on stage 5. That last heist had justified the decision to walk back his retirement last summer and devote another year of his life to chasing a win at the bike race that has defined it.

“I’m happy,” Cavendish said softly. “We did what we set out to achieve here at this Tour de France. We did it early on, so we’re happy. It’s been successful. I think anything on top of the fifth stage would have been a bonus for us, so we tried.”

Before the boy of summer can ride off into the sunset, however, he must negotiate one of the most demanding finales in the history of this race. The lack of a Paris finish hasn’t only denied Cavendish one last dance on the Champs-Élysées, it also compels him to navigate the most hostile of terrain in the hinterland of Nice.

On the road to Plateau de Beille on Sunday, Cavendish diced with elimination as Tadej Pogacar produced a supersonic display at the head of the race, but his Astana-Qazaqstan guard remained solidly around him, and they made it home safely inside the cut. Cavendish knows that further such hardships await at Isola 2000 and the Col de la Couillole in the coming days.

The record has already been claimed, and now another challenge remains. But maybe that was all part of the appeal of his lap around France. Cavendish smiled when asked if he would be able to savour his last days as a Tour rider.

“As much as you can in the Alps-Maritimes, you know,” he said. “It’s hard around there. I’ve trained a fair bit around there. But you know, we ride as a unit, and we’ll try to get through. It’s just about riding the rest of the kilometres there and trying to do it within a certain time of the leaders.”

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