Tour de France: Mark Cavendish carves history with all-time record-breaking win on stage 5

There was a time when Mark Cavendish stage victories at the Tour de France seemed to come about almost as a matter of routine, like the setting of the sun or the rising of the tides. The road to his record-breaking 35th victory was altogether more complicated, but that only heightened the emotion as the Manxman won stage 5 in Saint Vulbas on Wednesday afternoon.

The sprint finale was a chaotic one, as is so often the case in the modern Tour, but Cavendish has been imposing his order on situations like this since he was barely out of his teens. He delivered a rasping sprint to beat Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility) to the line, breaking the record he had shared with Eddy Merckx since 2021.