Mark Cavendish’s chain came off today at the #TdF2024 as he crossed the line because he dropped from ~1500W to 0W. Quite common. 1.5kW is 2 horse power! Enough to power a toaster, or a kettle to boil water. Astonishing amount of power.
Now Mark Cavendish has realised 'Project 35' we analyse who if anyone is best placed to break the Tour de France stage win record next
CyclingFriday, 05 July 2024 at 14:00
History was made on stage 5 of the 2024 Tour de France as sprinting legend Mark Cavendish took a record breaking 35th Tour de France stage win, moving clear of the great Eddy Merckx as the most successful stage winner in the history of cycling's most iconic race.
"I can't believe it. It was a big gamble to be here, to try to win here. A big gamble for my boss (Alexandre Vinokourov, ed.). That shows that he is a former rider and that he knows what the Tour is," Cavendish said in a post-race interview. "We just did it. We did what we wanted. Every detail in terms of equipment and teammates was adapted to sprinting. We are not suddenly going to be at the top of the UCI rankings, but the Tour de France is bigger than cycling."
With an incredible 16 years between his first stage win and his most recent, Cavendish has defeated all the great sprinters of the modern era. From Thor Hushovd to Marcel Kittel, Jasper Philipsen to Erik Zabel, the longevity of the Manx Missile has been nothing short of incredible during his career. As such, it may seem unlikely that anyone could ever beat the record of the now 39-year-old sprinter. If it is to happen however, who is best placed?
Well, immediately following Cavendish's 35th win, the Astana Qazaqstan Team sprinter headed over the Maillot Jaune wearing Tadej Pogacar, urging the UAE Team Emirates leader "don't beat it!" to which Pogacar replied with a chuckle; "No I won't, no worries!"
Just 25 years old, Pogacar already has 12 Tour de France stage wins and counting (written prior to stage 7 of the 2024 Tour de France ed.). With 24 stages to go to improve on Cavendish's record, it may seem out of reach, but as seen by the UAE Team Emirates leader's 6 stage wins at the 2024 Giro d'Italia, Pogacar could very easily and very quickly build up that tally of Tour triumphs.
"When I was a kid, I was watching Mark with my friends and my brother," Pogacar said in his post-stage 5 press conference. "He was just a hero to so many guys. He was winning in such a class with the team together. Now I'm already racing against him for six years. We became quite good friends, I would say. Winning the 35th stage, he's in historical company. Mark asked me behind the podium 'Please don't break this record' so I will let him have it."
If not Pogacar, who else? Jonas Vingegaard might seem a good shout given his dominance at the Tour over the last two years. With just three stage wins to his name however, the Dane is some way off. Jasper Philipsen took four stage wins at the 2023 edition of the Tour, increasing his tally to six victories. As seen by the Belgian's struggles in 2024 however, it's not always easy to keep winning multiple stages every year.
In fact, other than Pogacar, no active rider has been able to reach double figures in stage wins. So in summary, the evidence seems to suggest that Cavendish is set to hold the record for a very long while. Could Pogacar break it possibly, but even if he does that seems some way off at this point.
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- Exactly who, Joey, is "they"? Flimsy, illogical conspiracy theories aside, it is in no one's interest (financial or otherwise) to "drive away small local events." Major cultural and macroeconomic factors are reducing ridership, but there is no "they" in this context.verve82520-12-2024
- And our virtual platforms allow us to "ride" famous place that we can't get to in person, which is a pretty fabulous aspect of this weird weird sport.RidesHills19-12-2024
- Which off-season are you referring to? The one after he won the Tour of California? The one after he won 3 stages and was on the podium of the Vuelta? The one after TJV screwed up, never put him away, and lost the Tour on the time trial? We've seen the guy hit the wall, lose energy, nearly fail, and lose races ("I'm dead") more than once. He's got a visible threshold and his fueling regimen is a clear weak spot. You'll need more detail to make this more than under defined insinuations .RidesHills19-12-2024
- Interesting analysis. And yet, I'm in the US, and at a recent wedding reception as a group of us older folks had to stand at a certain place to keep track of a thing, we got to talking, and every single one of us had a favorite rider, a favorite circuit of races, a moment when we fell in love with the sport, and a joy in the complexities of it all. None of us knew about the other's fandom until that moment. It's wonderful that these are my brothers-in-law, and we now know to talk about this when the spouses aren't listening. Point being: there are fans all over, and for US folks, the loss of GCN+ has been huge. As so often, it's the media bottleneck that matters more than anything else. Look at F1 in the US before Netflix, as an example.RidesHills19-12-2024
- On the one hand, what he says is trivial. Of course it's genetics. It always is, in any sport. That's just obvious. Look at Mondo Duplantis, whose sprinting speed is key to his pole vaulting, for example - he's just plain faster than other vaulters and good at the rest of the event as well. In cycling, even when you take the most genetically weird group of people and give them amazing training, some will be better than others, as well. Distributions are distributions and there are outliers and that's just that. Pogacar's body is built for this kind of thing, it seems, with him only recently having had to pick up skills that others have used all along. I'm still inclined to believe that these folks are using entirely legal means to arrive at their shockingly good performance, given how more senior riders kinda complain about (or at least comment on) the regimens and control over the nutrition and exercise and all that. And in every population, there are edge cases of truly exceptional behavior.RidesHills19-12-2024
- And it’s likely going to get worse. They are going all-out to drive away small local events which are where a lot of new riders come from. They want fee income and Olympic medals. That’s all.JoeyB19-12-2024
- Oh Lordspock12319-12-2024
- Interesting suggestion, fo you think testing Tadej’s (or Bolts’ or so many others’) parents would have given us a preview of his potential then or what criteria do you have to pick parents with?Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- Even amateur teams suffer this sort. But this is also largely due to the precarious sponsorship, in very few sports do you find kit with so many sponsors having to be integrated and changing so regularly.Mistermaumau19-12-2024
- I think it’s pretty obvious what was responsible for destroying interest that used to be there.Mistermaumau19-12-2024