Mark Cavendish ready to aim for history in final Tour de France farewell

It’s not the first time that Sir Mark Cavendish is set for his final Tour de France and one last chance for another piece of history.

Twelve months ago, the Manxman had recently announced his impending retirement and embarked on what he thought would be his final Tour in search of a stage victory that would be the 35th of his career, giving him the absolute record after equaling Eddy Merckx on 34 in 2021.

He came within meters of that victory during the seventh stage in Bordeaux, hampered by a skipping chain, but a day later Cavendish left the race in an ambulance after breaking his collarbone during a a fall.

It was no way for one of the greatest cyclists of all time to end his long association with the race that defined much of his career. Whether or not he manages to win a stage, last year’s Tour was supposed to be a victory lap – a farewell to his favorite race.

Ultimately, it’s no surprise that Cavendish was persuaded by his family and his Astana-Qazaqstan team to continue for another year.

So here we go again. Cavendish, newly knighted in the King’s Birthday Honours, will be back on the start line.

Astana went all-in this time on the Cavendish project.

Last year there were question marks over his lead gear in a team with little sprint pedigree, so over the winter they brought in Michael Morkov and Davide Ballerini – two of the riders who helped him win four stages of the 2021 Tour.

The preparations are far from perfect. Cavendish, now 39, had a good start to the season with an early victory in Colombia, but things quickly went south after that.

He was forced to leave the sprinters’ paradise that is the UAE Tour in February due to illness. He returned to Tirreno-Adriatico a month later but missed the reduced time on a grueling Apennine stage, a sure sign he was still in trouble.

But Cavendish put that behind him when he beat Dylan Groenewegen to victory on stage two of the Tour of Hungary, a morale-boosting victory for him and the team.

The rumor within the camp is that Cavendish’s power numbers are close to those he was producing before the 2021 Tour.

The final days before the Tour saw Cavendish taking part in a training camp in Athens, having spent the middle week of June competing in the Tour de Suisse.

Many of his rivals for the Tour sprints – Jasper Philipsen, Fabio Jakobsen, Tim Merlier and Olav Kooij – have chosen to race in the Baloise Tour.

Cavendish embarked on Switzerland’s most demanding race to hone his mountain survival skills, keenly aware of the unusually difficult start to this year’s Tour in Italy.

Tour organizers ASO say there are eight sprint stages on this year’s route, although closer inspection of some of these flatter days suggests pure sprints will be limited to five.

The competition will be intense again, but the number of observers suggesting that Cavendish is too old to compete with the fastest runners on the planet seems to dwindle every year – he has proven too many times that too many between them were wrong.

But whether he tastes the champagne of victory again or not, Cavendish has another opportunity to end his Tour career on his own terms.