Cavendish growing in confidence as Tour de France sprint chances return - Stage 7 preview

Following two days of intense mountain stage race racing, the sprinters lead the Tour de France into the weekend, with another two opportunities for Mark Cavendish to extend his stage win record to 35 and for everyone else to try to steal his thunder.

The flat roads of southwestern and central France take the Tour de France from the mountain finish in Cauterets to the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux on Friday and then up and across to Limoges on Saturday.

The racing narrative has come in twos so far in this year’s Tour de France. We’ve had the Basque Country Grand Depart and the hilly early battles, then two sprint stages when the super-duo from Alpecin-Deceuninck of Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen dominated. Next it was the battles of Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) as well as Jai Hindley’s (Bora-Hansgrohe) day of glory in yellow. There has rarely been such an intense start to the Tour de France.

Be warned, the stages may not be electric all day on Friday and Saturday but the finishes surely will be. Philipsen, Cavendish, Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious), a pained Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep), Dylan Groenewegen (Jayco-AlUla), Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) and many others will go shoulder to shoulder in a fast fight for a sprint victory.

From remembering Luis Ocaña to springing along the Garonne riverbank

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Friday’s seventh stage is from Mont-de-Marsan to the centre of Bordeaux over a distance of 169.9km. Mont-de-Marsan is the small village where Luis Ocaña grew up after his family moved from Spain and where he got his first taste of cycling and discovered his incredible talents.

Ocaña’s career clashed with that of Eddy Merckx, with Ocaña often putting up a brave fight but ultimately losing to Merckx. Their 1971 battle is legendary, with Ocaña using his pure climbing skills and dogged determination to crack the Cannibal in the Alps, only to crash out in the Pyrenees. A new outdoor velodrome named in his honour will be officially opened before the stage.

The finish in Bordeaux comes after a flat ride across the plains and forests of the southwest corner of France. A break may go clear on the long straight roads but will surely be caught before the Bordeaux vines appear along the roadside.

Bordeaux hasn't hosted a Tour stage finish since Cavendish won in 2010 and the near two-kilometre long finishing straight along the river bank will surely offer him and others a chance of another sprint win.

The finish line is again on the splendour of the Quai Louis XVIII, where Cavendish beat Julian Dean and Alessandro Petacchi and cheekily had time to look back at his rivals, such was his advantage on the line.

Bordeaux is no longer visited regularly but the city often confirms a sprinter's reputation. Freddy Maertens, Barry Hoban, Djamoladine Abdoujaparov, Eric Vanderaerden and Erik Zabel have all won there and so Bordeaux would be a fitting place for Cavendish to take his 35th career stage win and so better the record he holds with Merckx.

If it doesn’t happen the suspense will roll over to Saturday and the more rolling and longer ride from Libourne to Limoges.

The 200.7km stage starts flat but heads into the Parc naturel régional Périgord-Limousin, with the final 70km in rolling beef pastures and green fields. The last Limoges sprint finish was in 2016 when Marcel Kittel edged out Bryan Coquard by just millimetres.

Motivation

Cavendish was emotional in Bilbao when he talked about riding his final Tour de France yet he insisted there was no time or space for sentiment or savouring his long goodbye because he has a job to do.

However, he has been enjoying every minute of the Tour so far, high-fiving the crowd on climbs, smiling often and finishing sixth in the Bayonne sprint and then fifth on the Nogaro motor racing circuit. He even suffered through the Pyrenees with a smile.

He seems to have the pure speed in his legs but has been unable to find a way to the front as Van der Poel leads out Philipsen so majestically. However his Astana Qazaqstan team sense momentum and are quietly optimistic that destiny and speed can combine to give Cavendish his record breaking 35th win.  

“Stages seven and eight are the next big days for us to Bordeaux and then to Limoges,” directeur sportif Stefano Zanini, who won on the Champs-Élysées in 2000, told Cyclingnews.

“We’ll be riding for Mark as we did in the other sprint stages and who knows if something special can happen and if Mark can pull off that big win…

“We lost an important rider Luis León Sánchez after he broke his collarbone but all the guys have evolved into a different race strategy and mentality, to target the sprints. We’re motivated to help Mark win.”