"You either love him or you don't" - Eddy Merckx and Patrick Lefevere praise Mark Cavendish's Tour de France record

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.