Stuff Someone Said: Mark Cavendish

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Thirty-four stage wins at the Tour de France. That is a heck of a lot of mass-finish sprint victories. When I compare that number against the wins tallied by the best sprinters of the era in which I raced locally, and was most interested in the TdF -  Mario Cipollini and Erik Zabel, each with twelve - well, it seems phenomenal. The greatest bicycle racer of all time -  Eddy Merckx - also tallied thirty-four stage victories at le Tour. As should be expected for someone graced with the superlative of GOAT, the wins by Merckx covered the spectrum, everything from mountain tops, to break aways, time trials and sprint finishes. 

This morning, if you were to search something like "tour de france stage wins" you would come up with a great number of stories about how Mark Cavendish has equalled the number of wins by Eddy Merckx; whether you consider those wins in broad terms, or more narrowly focused, does not detract from the basic quantity. Thirty-four is a lot no matter where those wins came from.

In his younger days Cavendish was considered extremely brash (you might remember my review of Boy Racer), but I consider it a credit to his growth and maturity that he, out of hand, puts aside any comparisons between himself and Merckx and, at the same time deflects from "his" record to how it, instead, might inspire "others":

"I don't think I can ever be compared to the great Eddy Merckx, the greatest male road cyclist of all time, but I think to equal him with the record number of stage victories, for people who don't follow cycling a lot, is something they can understand and put into perspective. If that inspired them to get on a bike, because a British rider has done that, then it's the biggest thing I can take from it."

Well done, and well said, Mark Cavendish!