And so here we are: Sir Mark Cavendish’s Tour de France swansong, his final chance to make history and claim that 35th stage victory.
The Briton, awarded a knighthood in the recent King’s birthday honours, is backed by both his Astana-Qazaqstan team and his former long-time sports director to win at least one of the Tour’s possible eight sprints over the course of the next three weeks.
Cavendish, 39, has only won two races all season – one each at the Tours of Colombia and Hungary – but after recovering from illness in the spring, he decamped three times to Athens, Greece, to fine-tune
