The Manx Missile, 39, postponed his retirement by a year in a bid to break the record after crashing out of the Tour in 2023.
He returned to take one more shot at claiming the Tour stage win record outright, having matched Merckx in 2021.was finally able to claim victory, and move himself clear of the Belgian to stand alone in Tour history after he came off the wheel of Fabio Jakobsen in the finale and had the power to hold off Jasper Philipsen.
“You have to go all-in and we’ve done it and worked it exactly how we wanted to do, how we built the team, the equipment, every little detail has been put towards today.”Cavendish's victory comes just four days after he struggled in the heat of a punishing opening stage out of Florence, vomiting on the bike in concerning scenes.
The team bossed the front of the peloton for much of the final 30km of the 177km stage from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, but in the finale the Manxman used his years of experience of surf the wheels before powering clear of his rivals.
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