How record-breaking Mark Cavendish became a Tour de France legend – according to his rivals and teammates
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Explosive on the bike and off it, the Manx Missile has made history as the most prolific stage winner the Tour de France has ever seen. Lawrence Ostlere speaks to allies and opponents about the fast and furious sprinter. A version of this piece was first published on 3 July 2023.
![[Cavendish and Renshaw embrace after winning the final stage of the 2009 Tour in Paris]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/07/03/13/GettyImages-89262938.jpg)
--. Mark Cavendish once gave me the look. It was an interview in a hotel lobby in Yorkshire; he was slightly late and apologised profusely, then answered questions about the Tour de France with enthusiasm and detail. For some reason, I thought 10 minutes of flowing conversation made me his trusted confidant, so I looked him in the eyes and asked the question he didn’t like answering: how much do you want to break Eddy Merckx’s Tour stage record? He shrugged it off. But what would it mean to you? He went quiet. Wouldn’t it crown your legacy?.
![[Cavendish celebrates beating Kittel, in blue, in 2016’s opening stage]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2023/07/03/13/GettyImages-458371619.jpg)
The look was somewhere in the Venn diagram of anger and disdain, and I half expected him to walk off. He stayed, but in that brief moment, I felt the gentlest prod of his famous spikiness. Cavendish was once asked what he’d learned from a difficult day on the bike. “That journalists sometimes ask some stupid f***ing questions,” he replied.
![[Morkov celebrates with a tearful Cavendish at the finish of stage four in 2021]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2021/07/15/17/09311208.jpg)
On the long journey to his historic 35th stage win, teammates and rivals have all felt Cavendish’s sharp tongue. He would slam doors if a stage didn’t go to plan. Helmets were thrown. “We stood on the bus after races and screamed at each other,” his former lead-out man Mark Renshaw tells me.
![[Mark Cavendish won a record 35th Tour de France stage]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/07/03/17/03-1ac6bfe0c0144d0d8b9f53cecb19cb0a.jpg)
