"That will make him so mad, so angry” - Jens Voigt suggests novel approach to ensure Mark Cavendish breaks Tour de France stage win record

The waiting is almost over and the 2024 Tour de France is very nearly upon us. For Mark Cavendish, someone indelibly entwined in Tour de France folklore, this year's edition of cycling's biggest spectacle offers one last chance to overtake the legendary Eddy Merckx and claim sole ownership of the stage win record.

After postponing his retirement following his crash enforced abandon of the 2023 edition of the Tour, the 'Manx Missile' returns with a quenching thirst for victory and a final opportunity to once and for all prove himself the greatest stage winner in the long and storied history of the Tour de France. Can he do it though? Now aged 39, the Astana Qazaqstan Team sprinter is certainly not at his peak in 2024. According to Jens Voigt, a Tour de France stage winner in his own right, all the doubters will be doing is fueling the fire of Cavendish and making him even more determined to realise Project 35.

“It might sound funny, but in order to help him win another stage, we should all talk against him and give him the feeling he cannot do it. That will make him so mad, so angry,” the 52-year-old German previews of Cavendish's chances in conversation with Eurosport. “He will gain so much energy out of being mad at us for writing him down that he will say, "I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna win a stage just to prove you wrong. Honestly, Cav is the type of person who, the more competition, the more opposition, the more people say, 'I don't think so,' he rises to that challenge.”

More than anything, the thing doubters point to in relation to Cavendish's Tour de France hopes is his age in relation to the likes of Jasper Philipsen, Mads Pedersen and the rest of the sprinting elite. With someone as dogged and determined as Cavendish however, this can't be taken at face value according to Voigt, who himself rode the Tour de France in his 40s.

“How many miracle comebacks has he had? Epstein-Barr, crashes, not finding a team for a long time, and still he comes back. So yes, absolutely. Plus, he's knighted now. Sir Mark Cavendish will definitely be good enough for one more stage win. I'm fully behind him. I'm fully backing him up," Voigt proclaims confidently. “I don't think we will see a dominant sprinter. They are all so close to each other that it depends on the day's luck, shape, and how the lead-out works out. Almost any of them are able to win a stage or lose a stage within the last 500 metres. It's tiny little things that make a difference between first, second, or third.”