"I always thought it was possible that he could still pull it off" - Wout van Aert not shocked by Mark Cavendish's 35th Tour victory

Mark Cavendish claimed his 35th Tour de France victory today, breaking Eddy Merckx’s stage win record. For Wout van Aert, it didn’t come as a complete surprise.

“I’m not completely surprised, I always thought it was possible that he could still pull it off,” he said in front of the WielerFlits camera. “Certainly in the sprint stages of the Tour nowadays, there is not always the same interest in making the race tough. Then you get a fast finale and of course he still has the legs,” Van Aert explains.

“It’s certainly a fairytale. It’s super clever that he has continued to pursue that all these years. He simply has so much experience that he is still super good at positioning himself and going at the right moment. I think he showed that today.”

In Cavendish’s best years, Van Aert was not yet a pro. “But I had experience those years up close, because I was always in front of the TV. I looked at him with a lot of respect. I now have nine Tour victories myself, but I’ve been stuck at that for a while, so I can imagine how difficult it can be to get 35 victories. He’s a special personality of course, but I like him. I actually get along with him. We always have a good chat in the peloton. Hats off to him.”

Cavendish shared the record so far with Eddy Merckx, a compatriot of Van Aert. “He now beats Merckx, so to speak, in terms of the number of stages, but you can’t compare those riders. Records are there to be broken. But no one ever thought that this record would be broken. Hats off.”