Cavendish Cut From Tour

Cavendish Cut From Tour

The Manx Missile forced out

Mark Cavendish’s hopes of beating  Eddy Merckx’s record of 34 stage wins in the Tour de France took a serious hit today as he was  eliminated from the race. Cavendish barely managed to stay in race after struggling to make the time cut  on Tuesday’s  10th stage from Annecy to Le Grand Bornand. But the second of  three days in the French Alps proved a step too far for the king of the sprinters.  The  Grande Boucle  set him packing.

Although Cavendish is a 30-time Tour stage winner and former world champion, the days of him riding with HTC-Colombia and racking up the stages with ease now seems like a whole different era.

Now that Cavendish has left the 2018 Tour, the first time he has ever been time cut, I think it’s safe to say he’ll never win another Tour stage. He’ll be 34 when the race rolls around next year, well past his prime for a sprinter and up and coming sprinters with funky new styles (Caleb Ewan) look ready to take the throne. The king is dead, long live the king.