"You either love him or you don't" - Eddy Merckx and Patrick Lefevere praise Mark Cavendish's Tour de France record
Cycling
Mark Cavendish's victory yesterday is an absolute Tour de France highlight, not just this year but for the decade as well. The man he dethroned, Eddy Merckx, had no negative feelings on the loss of the record (which both held for the past years) and Patrick Lefevere was also proud of his former rider.
“Congratulations to Mark Cavendish on this historic achievement! Such a nice guy to break my record," Eddy Merckx wrote in an Instagram story. Merckx, the Tour's legend, holds 34 wins but now the new record is one that likely will stand the test of time for decades to come. Many figures in the peloton from previous decades have spoken out on what is history in the making in real time, that includes Patrick Lefevere who took a bet on Cavendish into the 2021 season which proved to be an absolute success at the time with four sprint victories at the Tour - which led him to be able to take the record this week.
"Mark Cavendish was, is and always will be someone special. You either love him or you don't. But he has a good heart, he's someone who's very good inside," Patrick Lefevere told Cyclism'Actu. "Even when he left the team, he always made sure to invite me to the best restaurants when I came to London... that's also Mark Cavendish. When he was at Gent-Wevelgem, in 2020, he was on TV and he started crying in an interview, he broke my heart."
Lefevere tells the story of how he and Cavendish first started talking about a return to Soudal - Quick-Step a few years back, at a time where with Bahrain - Victorious Cavendish's career seemed to be over. "I called him, I said 'what are you doing', he answered 'I'm at the hotel next door'. So I offered him to come to my office the next morning. He came by taxi and when he got home, he started crying. I told him 'listen Mark, I have no money, I have no budget, but if you find money I can take you on the team'".
"He's one of the greatest sprinters in the history of cycling. He beat Eddy Merckx's record, but I don't like to say that, because Eddy Merckx won time trials, mountain stages, flat stages... I don't like to compare generations, but in any case I'm a fan," he concluded.
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A founding contributor to CyclingUpToDate since its launch in January 2022, Ruben Silva has played a central role in shaping the site’s editorial direction and long-term growth. Before joining the project, he built his experience through independent blogging at Echelons Hub and by producing race previews for Ciclismo Internacional, developing a strong analytical voice rooted in daily engagement with professional cycling.
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Originally from the Porto metropolitan area in Portugal, he holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography. His path into cycling journalism was shaped not through formal media training, but through independent reporting, community engagement, and sustained on-the-ground involvement in the sport.
Over the course of his career, he has conducted approximately 100 interviews across road cycling and cyclocross, ranging from one-to-one conversations and online formats to press conferences and on-site pre- and post-race coverage. His interviews include leading riders, team managers, and prominent figures within cycling media: Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Primoz Roglic, Wout van Aert, Joao Almeida and Tom Pidcock; managers like Patrick Lefevere and Joxean Matxin; and YouTube personality Bryan Kennedy (BKXC)...
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
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