Not long ago the Manxman talked tearfully about retirement. Now Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 Tour stage wins is in sightAs the French like to say, eating whets the appetite. So on Friday, the morning after winning the 32nd Tour de France stage of his career at Châteauroux, Mark Cavendish did not rest on his laurels, but formed part of a decisive 28-rider escape on the longest stage of the race. He spent much of the 249km run to Le Creusot several minutes ahead of the field, along with some of the strongest one-day racers in cycling: Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert, Philippe Gilbert and Vincenzo Nibali.Given the hills that peppered the finale of the stage, Cavendish was...
Thirty-five years after Bernard Hinault’s Tour de France win, the world champion carries slim home hopesOn Monday, the Tour de France’s mini-tour of famous cycling locations in the bike racing heartland of Brittany takes it through Plumelec and up the legendary Cadoudal hill. The ascent will be brief and probably inconsequential, but after a weekend full of reminders of French cycling’s glorious past it will serve as yet another reminder of a far longer and more existentially painful battle: the 35-year hiatus since the home nation won its Tour.In 1985, Plumelec was where Bernard Hinault won the prologue in front of 100,000 baying fans, the first stepping stone towards the “Badger’s” his fifth Tour win, the last victory for a...
Roglic came to cycling late after starting out as a ski jumper while precocious talent Pogacar has been steeped in the sportFrench headline writers love to adapt the sentence used on level crossings by the national rail company to warn that if the red lights keep flashing, another train may be coming. The 2020 Tour de France is a landmark edition in various ways, but with Tadej Pogacar snatching a last-gasp, unlikely win from Primoz Roglic on Saturday, the old level-crossing cliche, un train peut en cacher un autre, could sum up the past three weeks: one Slovenian can come in the slipstream of another.Nailing first and second in the biggest bike race in the world is a huge step...
The Tour de France has not panned out as predicted, with neither heavyweight looking dominant. What has gone wrong for the big two?The rearranged 2020 Tour de France was billed as the battle of the super-teams, Manchester City versus Barcelona on two wheels. In the burgundy corner, Team Ineos, the squad of galácticos that have dominated the Tour since 2012, winning seven times with four different riders. In the yellow and black corner, the Dutch upstarts Jumbo-Visma, who have built a team gradually around the Slovenian Primoz Roglic, and put it in a new dimension last year by adding the 2017 Giro d’Italia winner, Tom Dumoulin.Two weeks in, that battle has yet to materialise and it may not happen even...
The Mitchelton-Scott rider, who joins Ineos next season, has arguably been less successful than his twin, Simon, but now he leads the Tour de France this could be his momentThere were two surprises after Wednesday’s finish when Adam Yates pulled on the yellow jersey of the Tour de France, which he wore into the first Pyrenean stage of the race on Saturday. The obvious shock was in the way that Yates was awarded the maillot jaune – the passive verb is important here – when Julian Alaphilippe and his Deceuninck–Quick-Step team made an unlikely unforced error that earned the French favourite a time penalty. More disconcerting perhaps was the fact it has taken the best part of seven professional seasons...