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The saddest face you’ll ever see at the Tour de France

Mark Cavendish was forced to abandon with the stage record in sight

Mark Cavendish at the Tour de France
July 8, 2023
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Pro cycling is a beautiful but cruel sport. There are days when the unthinkable happens, when underdogs become heroes, when the impossible occurs, when such incredible racing makes you scream at the TV. Not everything goes to script, and that can certainly be said for Mark Cavendish and his quest to usurp the Eddy Merckx. Cav and Merckx both share the all-time record for stage wins at the Tour at 34. This is the Astana Qazaqstan’s final tour; he announced he would retire at the end of 2023 at the Giro d’Italia, where, by the way, he won a stage.

The finale of Stage 8 saw Mads Pedersen successfully holding off the triple 2023 Tour de France stage winner, Jasper Philipsen, and surged to secure his first triumph of the 110th edition, marking his second career victory. With this achievement, Pedersen has now conquered stages in all three Grand Tours.

But the day was marred by the unfortunate event of Mark Cavendish crashing out of his final Tour. After the stage, many of his peers took to Twitter to express their sadness that the 38-year-old was forced to retire.

Current yellow jersey, and 2022 champion, Jonas Vingegaard shared his feelings.

Broadcaster José Been rightly pointed out that although Cav is tied–he still has the record.

One of Hollywood’s greats, Ben Stiller even weighed in.

Peter Sagan also spoke about the sheer explosiveness of Cav’s sprint.

Tadej Pogačar, who tried his hand in the sprint and finished top-10, gets it.

Stage winner Mads Pedersen gave a shout-out to the Brit in his post-race interview.

Sports is all about the highs and the lows, but when you see the face of Cav…it really hits home tha sometimes it can be a tough pill to swallow.