Bordeaux
Wout van Aert won his second stage yesterday on a high-speed time trial racecourse through some of the most coveted vineyards in the world. Pomerol, Petrus, Lussac…the mouthwatering names set in that wonderfully beautiful landscape showed the power of road cycling as a tourism vehicle and showed us the power of van Aert, able to put out that effort at the end of three hard weeks of racing. The Belgian has won a mountain stage – the double ascension of Mout Ventoux - and now a time trial. Tongues began wagging: could he in fact become a Tour winner one day? Van Aert brushed off the question in a post-race interview, pointing out his 19th overall saying, “I’d have to ride a full hour faster to win the Tour.” Still, his has been a wonderful performance over these past three-weeks, especially considering that the team is down to only four riders and the Belgian had to perform massive amounts of work to keep his charge, the revelation of the Tour Jonas Vingegaard, in position during the race. He’ll try and win today on the Champs-Èlysèes because, on top of climbing and time trial prowess, the man can sprint. What a racer.
The time trial confirmed the existing standing of the race, there were no great changes but the third-place performance of Vingegaard proved the young Dane’s worth, his second overall in this Tour an unexpected and delightful result for the understudy, thrown suddenly into a starring role with the crash of his leader, Primoz Roglič. The thought of a Roglič, Vingegaard and van Aert three-pronged attack in 2022 gives us much to look forward to.
Mark Cavendish, like the professional 6-Day man his is, has left all the drama to the final sprint. He and his team, except for Kasper Asgreen, an excellent second yesterday and Mattia Cattaneo, who seems to be finding new ambitions, have been ‘resting’ the past two days, getting ready for the greatest sprint finish in the world on the Champs. A sprint that may be one of the last as Paris is undertaking a complete renovation of the famed boulevard, turning it from an automobile-choked venue into a pedestrian/bicycle oasis for the city.
Michael Mørkøv, Cav’s main pilot fish, gave a fascinating interview in L’Equipe, where he explained his role and how he came to it late in his career. Of how he’d been a simple teammate for Alberto Contador in the past, and it was only at 30-years old that Alexander Kristoff asked him to become part of the Norwegian’s sprint train at Katusha. Mørkøv, who knew nothing at the time of the lead-out role, studied “hundreds of hours of videos, looking at the great racers, analyzing how they placed themselves, how they used the road and wind direction, realizing I was made for this job. I’m calm, meticulous, and instinctive. And I believe completely in my sprinter, no matter who they are.” He also went on to say, “My work can radically change depending on the character of the sprinter. Elia Viviani is supremely confident; you only need to guide him in the sprint. With Mark, things are completely reversed. He knows what to do in the finale, but during the stage he’s full of doubts, he traps us next to him to bring comfort, food, and drink, constantly telling him how many kilometers there are to go – in the mountains you have no idea what I have to say to keep him motivated. With Mark, the sprint is the easiest part of my day.”
Mørkøv also related how he’d come across Cav on a training ride in Majorca two years ago, when the Manxman was in the depths of his depression. The two, who’ve been friends for 20-years, spoke at length. At one point Cav told him, “If they let me ride the Tour once more, just once, I’ll beat Merckx’s record.” Mørkøv thought he was out of his mind at the time, but when, with five-days to the start of this Tour, Mark Cavendish was announced as their sprinter, replacing the embattled Sam Bennett, the Dane thought to himself, “I know it’ll be an incredible challenge, but I can take a legend like Cavendish to the summit. You cannot imagine to what point that motivated me, what an honor it was.”
There was a video making the rounds yesterday of Cavendish in full tantrum over his bicycle, stomping off to the team bus after having thrown his machine at the mechanic. It was there that one could see the rage of a sprinter, the explosive force, both physical and mental that combine to create these special creatures. I loved the vid and his raw anger, the insight that came out of it. Cyrille Guimard – and notwithstanding my views on his positional theories remains for us all a highly respected wizard of the sport - was asked about Remco Evenepoel’s similar tantrum. Guimard responded say that he’d decided to sign a teenaged Greg LeMond after observing the American throwing a bike at his mechanic during an amateur stage race. Guimard spoke of the ferocity of a true champion, the wild desire for victory and how the anger he saw convinced him that LeMond was a future great.
Mark Cavendish has come from the depths, depths of depression, depths of what everyone considered to be a finished career. He’s not ridden a Grand Tour in two years, he’s not raced nor trained in the mountains this year. Yet here he is, primed to make history as the record man stage winner of the Tour de France, ready to take Eddy Merckx’s record. Someone who can do all of that is not going to be your normal person. They’ve got to be a bit crazy, certainly irrational because what he’s done so far is irrational – no one would believe just as Michael Mørkøv didn’t. But stars are different that you or me, as the saying goes, and after all he’s been through, at the end of three-weeks of racing, on the most beautiful boulevard in the world, all eyes will be on Mark Cavendish, the star.