How many Tour de France stages has Mark Cavendish won? What he needs to beat Eddy Merckx record in 2023 race

Mark Cavendish has a solitary goal as he heads to the Tour de France for one last time.

“He will risk it all for that one stage,” his former teammate, Adam Hansen, tells i. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he just won and then walked home. Win a stage, break the record, hang up his wheels.”

Hansen supported Cavendish at the 2008 Tour de France, where the Manx Missile won the first four of his 34 stage wins, a feat that has the 38-year-old level with Eddy Merckx on the all-time list.

One more win would give Cavendish the outright record, and his team Astana Qazaqstan – who confirmed him in their line-up on Monday – are doing all they can to make that dream a reality, having recruited his former lead-out man Mark Renshaw as a sprint consultant for the Tour.

“Sooooooo buzzing about this…..” Cavendish said on Instagram, with Renshaw’s “ridiculously valuable” input a factor that could help make history at this year’s edition of the Tour de France – even if Mission No 35 comes down to the very final day in Paris.

“I wish him the best,” adds Hansen. “I really hope he gets 35. I hope he breaks the record. Nothing to do with Merckx, I just personally know Cav. He’s always a laugh, a good character, and just loves riding his bike. He deserves it.”

Astana Qazaqstan are Cavendish’s eighth professional team, and he is therefore no stranger to adversity, having been overlooked for the 2019 and 2020 editions of the Tour de France.

Moving to Deceuninck–Quick-Step in 2021 reignited his bid to catch Merckx, and remarkably four stage wins that year took him level with the Belgian – and also helped him capture the green sprinter’s jersey for a second time.

But a 2022 spot on the Tour was not forthcoming. “I know if I went I’d win,” he said at the time, but Quick-Step felt otherwise, and Cavendish’s hopes for surpassing Merckx were dashed.

The full list of Mark Cavendish’s Tour de France stage wins

2008

Stage 5 – Cholet to Châteauroux

Stage 8 – Figeac to Toulouse

Stage 12 – Lavelanet to Narbonne

Stage 13 – Narbonne to Nîmes

2009

Stage 2 – Monaco to Brignoles

Stage 3 – Marseille to La Grande-Motte

Stage 10 – Limoges to Issoudun

Stage 11 – Vatan to Saint-Fargeau

Stage 19 – Bourgoin-Jallieu to Aubenas

Stage 21 – Montereau-Fault-Yonne to Paris (Champs-Élysées)

2010

Stage 5 – Épernay to Montargis

Stage 6 – Montargis to Gueugnon

Stage 11 – Sisteron to Bourg-lès-Valence

Stage 18 – Salies-de-Béarn to Bordeaux

Stage 20 – Longjumeau to Paris (Champs-Élysées)

2011

Stage 5 – Carhaix to Cap Fréhel

Stage 7 – Le Mans to Châteauroux

Stage 11 – Blaye-les-Mines to Lavaur

Stage 15 – Limoux to Montpellier

Stage 21 – Créteil to Paris (Champs-Élysées)

2012

Stage 2 – Visé (Belgium) to Tournai (Belgium)

Stage 18 – Blagnac to Brive-la-Gaillarde

Stage 20 – Rambouillet to Paris (Champs-Élysées)

2013

Stage 5 – Cagnes-sur-Mer to Marseille

Stage 13 – Tours to Saint-Amand-Montrond

2015

Stage 7 – Livarot to Fougères

2016

Stage 1 – Mont Saint-Michel to Utah Beach (Sainte-Marie-du-Mont

Stage 3 – Granville to Angers

Stage 6 – Arpajon-sur-Cère to Montauban

Stage 14 – Montélimar to Villars-les-Dombes (Parc des Oiseaux)

2021

Stage 4 – Redon to Fougères

Stage 6 – Tours to Châteauroux

Stage 10 – Albertville to Valence

Stage 13 – Nîmes to Carcassonne

He then started 2023 as a free agent before Astana snapped him up in mid-January. “As always, the objective will be for us to stand on the top podium,” he said, with 161 stage wins across the board under his belt.

Against the odds, No 162 came in the final stage of the Giro d’Italia in May, despite crashing just two weeks prior in a chaotic and wet Stage 5 where he slid across the line.

“He crashed in the most unimaginably violent and dramatic fashion,” Ned Boulting, ITV’s lead commentator for the upcoming Tour, tells i.

“I thought that was the end of his career. It happened right in front of me, but he just picked himself up and walked away from it.

“And that was the moment I thought, ‘hang on… the stars are aligning for Cavendish somehow in this race.’ So it didn’t surprise me one bit that he left it until Stage 21 of the Giro to ride to that fantastic, dramatic victory in Rome.

“Honestly? I can see the same thing happening in France. He will just will it. It’ll be sheer force of will. I think that he may well spurn the first few opportunities and then a couple more chances will slip through his fingers, because the breakaway will stay away. It could all come down to Paris.

Astana Qazaqstan Team's British rider Mark Cavendish falls down on the arrival of the fifth stage of the Giro d'Italia 2023 cycling race in Salerno, on May 10, 2023. (Photo by Luca Bettini / AFP) (Photo by LUCA BETTINI/AFP via Getty Images) — Mark Cavendish bounced back from a Stage 5 crash to win Stage 21 at the Giro (Photo: Getty)

“Some of the other sprinters will be eliminated, so the field will be narrower. And I can just see him doing it on his final day of racing at the Tour de France on the cobbles of the Champs-Élysées.”

For Cavendish to be competing with the world’s best sprinters at 38 is testament to his strengths, a resilience that defied his power output, a desire to win that few can match.

“He’s a special character,” Hansen adds. “We saw what he did at the Giro. He’s still there and he’s up for contention. There’s no reason why he can’t win a stage in the Tour.”

Boutling is confident, too, and hailed Cavendish’s innate self-belief that has taken him to this stage.

“He’s never been a very scientific racer,” Boutling adds. “He’s never been, I think by his own admission, the hardest worker in training. At the moment as I speak to you, most of his opponents are training at high-altitude camps, locked away, deeply scientifically focusing on the Tour de France.

“He is at home at the Isle of Man, just going out for sort of half-decent rides with his mates, local club riders. He is the last of the truly old-school riders in the peloton. He does it on instinct, he does it on iron self-belief, and he does it because he is physiologically, massively resilient.

“This edition of the Giro was one of the hardest in recent history, but he made it all the way through. Other sprinters were falling by the wayside one after the other. When they made it to the finish for the last stage in Rome, they were cooked, they were absolutely spent, but he somehow got stronger as the three weeks went on. And I think he’ll do that again in France.”

How to watch Tour de France 2023 in UK

Dates: 1-23 July (rest days on 10 and 17 July)

Start times: Vary day by day, but typically between 11am and 1pm in the UK – the final Stage 21 starts at 3.30pm

TV: ITV4, Eurosport and Welsh-language channel S4C

Live stream: ITVX, Eurosport’s website and discovery+

Highlights: Daily highlight shows will be broadcast on ITV4 and Eurosport, with stage highlights, interviews and analysis on both ITV.com and Eurosport.co.uk