Jens Voigt: "Cav is actually a real threat for the Tour and the record"

In the kind of finale a Hollywood scriptwriter would produce, Mark Cavendish finished his final Giro d'Italia in style with an emotional stage win in Rome. Buoyed by this result, Eurosport analyst Jens Voigt believes that the sprinter can now go on and take a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win.

“You can never underestimate how much these sprinters just operate on confidence,” said Voigt a Giro d'Italia stage winner in his own right from 2008, on Eurosport's coverage of the Giro d'Italia. “Cav does everything spectacularly – he crashes spectacularly, he wins spectacularly. It’s never normal. He’s always on the extreme.”

After a relatively disappointing Giro d'Italia for the Astana Qazaqstan Team rider prior to his victory in Rome, there had been some doubt over whether he could still match it with the elite sprinters. Voigt himself had doubts. “I have to eat my own words. Cav is actually a real threat for the Tour and the record."

“Look at the gap he put into everyone else. These were no terrible bike riders he just beat, it was a really superb win like he was back in his best days," Voigt continues. "He is up for the Tour. Everything is possible now.”