‘It’s not even a bike race, it’s the Tour de France’ – Mark Cavendish on an emotional close to the season, and maybe his career

Even sitting nearly 10,000km away from France, in a hotel in Japan there is no escaping the power of the Tour de France. 

Fans wait outside the doors of the lobby trying to catch an autograph from their cycling heroes who are out for the Tour de France Saitama Criterium – Mark Cavendish taking centre stage among a lustrous list of assembled stars as the Astana Qazaqstan rider lines up at the event for perhaps the last time in his career.