After waiting more than three years for a stage win, Mark Cavendish won his second in two days with another skilfully timed sprint at the Tour of Turkey. Following the jubilant victory that ended his long drought in the second stage of the race, the 35-year-old from the Isle of Man provided further evidence that there is plenty of racing left in his legs as he rebuilds belief in himself after a few seasons dogged by illness and injury.
“I have more confidence today to know that I could do it more,” he said. “I don’t think it gives me as much confidence as I used to have, but it definitely gives me confidence in myself, more than any kind of swagger, I guess.”
In the final sprint of the 212.6 kilometre stage from Beysehir to Alanya, Cavendish once again sized himself up against Andre Greipel, a fellow veteran, whom he had outmanoeuvred the day before, then launched a finishing burst in the final 100 metres that took him clear of Jasper Philipsen and Staszek Aniolkowski, crossing the line and raising both arms in the air in triumph.
“It was one we tried to take on from the front today,” he said. “It worked, but it was a difficult sprint to play, a real messy one to get right, and we knew once we took it up then it was a case of staying there. The guys did an incredible job, a really incredible job to keep me there out of the wind.”
The Deceuninck-QuickStep team he has rejoined on a one-year contract, having contemplated retirement last year, has a roster well stocked with talented sprinters, including Sam Bennett, the 30-year-old Irish rider, who won the green jersey for the points classification at the Tour de France last year. If Cavendish can continue in such fine form, speculation will undoubtedly mount that he might yet get the chance to add to his 30 stage wins at the Tour and renew his pursuit of Eddy Merckx’s record of 34, even if Cavendish himself has described such a prospect as “fairytale land”.
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The most recent of those 30 victories came back in 2016 and he has not ridden in the Tour for the last two years. He will have to beat stronger fields than that assembled in Turkey to mount a serious challenge to Bennett as his team’s sprint leader, but Cavendish has served notice that he remains a force to be reckoned with, back in a team where he feels well supported after an unhappy end to three-year spell with Team Dimension Data and a one-year stint at Bahrain-McLaren.
Back at the Belgian team where he enjoyed a sustained period of success from 2013-2015, he has clearly been given a new lease of life and the cycling world will continue to watch his progress with interest.
