Mark Cavendish finally breaks Tour de France record with historic 35th stage win

Sir Mark Cavendish has won a record-breaking 35th career Tour de France stage win with victory on stage five in Saint-Vulbas.

The Manx Missile, 39, postponed his retirement by a year in a bid to break the record after crashing out of the Tour in 2023.

He returned to take one more shot at claiming the Tour stage win record outright, having matched Merckx in 2021.

Cavendish was finally able to claim victory, and move himself clear of the Belgian to stand alone in Tour history after he came off the wheel of Fabio Jakobsen in the finale and had the power to hold off Jasper Philipsen.

The cyclist's wife Peta and their children were waiting at the team bus and joined in exuberant celebrations as he crossed the finish line.

Cavendish, from the Isle of Man, said: “I’m in a little bit of disbelief. Astana put a big gamble on this year to make sure we’re good here at the Tour, my boss has done it.

“It’s a big gamble to come here to try to win at least one stage, a big gamble for my boss Alexander Vinokourov, a big thing to do, it shows he’s an ex-bike rider, somebody who knows what the Tour de France is.

“You have to go all-in and we’ve done it and worked it exactly how we wanted to do, how we built the team, the equipment, every little detail has been put towards today.”

Cavendish's victory comes just four days after he struggled in the heat of a punishing opening stage out of Florence, vomiting on the bike in concerning scenes.

Just two days after he missed the opportunity to contest stage three after being caught behind a late crash in Turin.

But his Astana-Qazaqstan team were determined to see him win, going all-in on ‘Project 35’ ahead of the 2024 race.

The team bossed the front of the peloton for much of the final 30km of the 177km stage from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, but in the finale the Manxman used his years of experience of surf the wheels before powering clear of his rivals.

He left behind his lead-out man Michael Morkov and moved behind Philipsen and then Jakobsen, before spying space on the left-hand side of the road and bursting clear.

Cavendish’s four stage wins in 2021 counted as one of sport’s great comeback stories, his first victories at the Tour in five years after a period of time marked by illness and injury which contributed to a diagnosis of depression.

Even since those wins three years ago, Cavendish has endured more difficulty, only signing a last-minute deal with Astana-Qazaqstan ahead of the 2023 season after the collapse of another move, then seeing the 2023's Tour end abruptly on stage eight.

Cavendish, who was knighted in the most recent King's Birthday Honours list, attempted to break the record in 2023, but his bid ended after he was forced to abandon the race following a crash.

The cyclist went down hard and held his shoulder after a crash in the peloton around 60km from the finish of stage eight from Libourne to Limoges.

Cavendish won his first Tour stages back in 2008, taking four in total, and chalked up 20 in his first four participations.

He enjoyed four stage wins in 2021, equalling Merckx’s record with his victory on stage 13 in Carcassonne.