A thunderclap fell on the Tour de France 2023. Mark Cavendish abandoned, Saturday July 8, during the eighth stage between Libourne (Gironde) and Limoges. Victim of a fall sixty kilometers from the finish, while he was in the peloton, the Briton immediately touched his right shoulder before getting into the ambulance. With a blank stare, he did not return to the road of the race but that of the hospital in Périgueux (Dordogne). A few hours later, the verdict fell: fracture of the right collarbone, the one that the British sprinter had already broken in 2017.
At 38, the man from the Isle of Man was playing the 14th and last Big Loop of his career since he announced at the start of the season that he would hang up the bike at the end of the year. “I think it’s the perfect time to announce that 2023 will be my last season as a professional cyclist,” he said in May during the Giro d’Italia.
No 35th victory on the Tour
The contrast is cruel compared to the day before. In Bordeaux, Mark Cavendish believed, for a moment, that he was going to sign his 35th success in the Tour de France. This would have allowed him to overtake Belgian legend Eddy Merckx and become the only record holder for victories in the event. “We’re going to try again,” he said on the banks of the Garonne, at the foot of the Astana Qazaqstan team bus.
He won’t get the chance. In the first three sprints of this 110th edition, the “Cav” could not do anything against the ogre Jaspen Philipsen, winner each time. Sixth at Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques), fifth at Nogaro (Gers) and second, therefore, at Bordeaux (Gironde), he had proved that the form was still there. Especially since he had to manage almost alone as he approached the final wrap, unlike the sprinter from the Alpecin-Deceuninck formation, with perfectly oiled mechanics.
