Mark Cavendish: All 35 of Manx Missile's record-breaking stage ...

The ‘Manx Missile’ matched Merckx’s 34 stage victories in 2021, and was inches away from breaking the record outright at last year’s Tour, before a mechanical in the closing metres scuppered his chances.

He crashed out on the following stage and postponed his planned retirement by a year in a bid to claim that elusive 35th victory. 

Three years on and in what is definitively his final, 15th Tour, it was now or never for the Manxman. And he duly delivered with a trademark sprint to the finishing line unopposed.

Here is a look back at his 15 Tours and 35 triumphs on a monumental day for cycling and sporting history. 

Two years after turning pro, Cavendish was selected for his first Tour de France. It was an inauspicious start as he crashed on Stages 1 and 2 and abandoned on Stage 8 as the race reached the Alps. 

Mark Cavendish wins his first ever stage of the Tour de France on stage 5 in 2008

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That inauspicious beginning was forgotten after a brilliant second Tour, where he won Stages 5, 8, 12 and 13. There may even have been more had he not abandoned after Stage 14 to concentrate on the Beijing Olympics, where he partnered with Bradley Wiggins in the track Madison. (The reigning world champions were favourites for gold but finished ninth.)

Cavendish wins his first of four victories in a row on the iconic Champs-Elysees in Paris

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Cavendish enjoyed his most prolific Tour in 2009, winning six stages - becoming the 12th man in history to do so - and passing what was then the British record for Tour de France stage wins: eight, a record held by Barry Hoban. This was also a memorable Tour for his partnership with lead-out man Mark Renshaw, who he has since been reunited with at Astana-Qazaqstan, now as a directeur sportif. The Manxman won Stages 2, 3, 10, 11, 19 and 21 – his first on the iconic Champs-Elysees in Paris.

Cavendish celebrates his fifth win of the 2010 Tour de France, stage 20 on the Champs-Elysees

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The Manx Missile crashed out of the sprint on Stage 1 but recovered in fine fashion to win five Stages 5, 6, 11, 18 and 20, and finished second in the points classification. 

Victory on the Champs-Elysees again in 2011 as Cavendish won the points classification for the first time

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Another bumper year as he moved to 20 Tour victories. Cavendish won Stages 5, 7, 11, 15 and 21, which made him the first person to win the final stage three years in a row, and he became the first British rider to wear the green jersey in Paris. 

Victory on the Champs-Elysees again in 2012, this time in the rainbow world champion's jersey

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Now at Team Sky, Cavendish won Stage 2 before switching his attention – alongside the rest of the team – to supporting Bradley Wiggins in his bid for overall glory. With the yellow jersey secured, his team led him out for a memorable victory on stage 18, where he reeled in the last survivors of the day's breakaway in the final 400m before holding on for the win.

A record-breaking fourth successive win on the Champs-Elysees on Stage 20 - again led out by Wiggins - made him the most successful sprinter in Tour history with 23 stage wins, as well as becoming the first ever to win on the Champs-Elysees in the world champion's rainbow jersey. 

Cavendish wins stage 13 of the 2013 Tour de France

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A quieter year for Cavendish, by his own standards. He won Stage 5, where he was greeted by Andre Darrigade, formerly the Tour’s best sprinter until Cavendish took over that accolade. On Stage 13 he won in unusual style after being part of a 14-man breakaway launched with 30km to go, before outsprinting Peter Sagan for a 25th victory. 

Tour heartbreak again for Cavendish, this time on home soil, as a crash forced him out of the race on Stage 1 from Leeds to Harrogate. The Manxman suffered a dislocated shoulder and didn’t start Stage 2, finishing the year with zero Grand Tour stage victories. 

Back to winning ways on stage 7 in 2015

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Just the one win after another quiet Tour: Stage 7, when he pounced onto rival Andre Greipel’s wheel before passing him for his first victory since 2013.

Cavendish won the first stage of the 2016 Tour to sport yellow for the first time in his career

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Back in business: four wins, including a memorable one at Utah Beach on Stage 1 which put him in the yellow jersey for the first time in his career. He backed it up with another three: beating Greipel in a photo finish on stage 3, then taking Stage 6 and Stage 14, before abandoning the Tour to focus on the upcoming Olympics. (He had better luck than in 2008, winning his first medal, a silver in the omnium.)

The start of the wilderness years. In April, he was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus, which wrecked the early part of his season and affected his racing for several more years. Another crash saw him abandon the Tour in what was becoming an unfortunate pattern. Rival Peter Sagan appeared to push Cavendish into the barriers on Stage 4, leaving the Brit with a fractured shoulder – the same shoulder which had dislocated three years earlier.  

Another disappointing year, dogged by a series of crashes and injuries. He started the Tour lacking in form and fell foul of the time limit on Stage 11, finishing more than an hour after stage (and Tour) winner Geraint Thomas. 

This year he didn’t participate at all, having not been selected by Team Dimension Data boss Douglas Ryder. 

Now at Bahrain-McLaren, Cavendish missed out on selection for the Tour for the second year in a row and considered retirement. 2020's rugged, mountainous route was far from ideal for him and his slim prospects were hampered by a pandemic-affected lack of racing in his legs. 

A historic 34th stage win on stage 13 in 2021

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The fairytale Tour. Back with old team Deceuninck–Quick-Step, Cavendish was only drafted into the Tour squad as a late replacement for the injured Sam Bennett. And it worked wonders: a five-year winless drought came to an end with a succession of stunning victories on Stages 4, 6 (the scene of his first-ever win), and 10, bringing him closer and closer to the magic 34. Fifteen years of blood, toil, tears and sweat culminated on Stage 13 in Carcassonne, where he matched Merckx’s record. If he wasn’t already the best sprinter of all time, he certainly was now.

He missed out on the outright record, coming third on the Champs-Elysees, but he did win a second points classification, 10 years after the first.

Despite a strong start to the year and a stage win at the Giro d’Italia he wasn’t selected for the Tour by boss Patrick Lefevere, pushing his chance to create more history back a year. 

And it wasn’t to be last year either. Now at Astana-Qazaqstan, he came heartbreakingly close to breaking his own record in Bordeaux on Stage 7, where a mechanical in the final few metres of the stage saw him overtaken by Jasper Philipsen and pipped just before the line.

Less than 24 hours later his Tour was over. A crash around 60km from the finish of Stage 8 saw him break his collarbone and abandon in tears. At the time it felt like a terrible end to a storied career, marked as much by crashes, illness and misfortune as it was by glittering results. 

That was until he announced he was having one more go – and the rest is history. 

'The greatest of all time!' – Cavendish lands astonishing 35th stage win at the Tour de France

The historic milestone victory arrived in jaw-dropping fashion at Stage 5. Cavendish surged clear in the final section and pumped both arms in the air in celebration, before seemingly the entire peloton came to congratulate him.

The Manx Missile's historic 35th stage win arrived in Saint Vulbas at the prime age of 39, finally edging him ahead of Belgian great Merckx.