Should you’re questioning how Mark Cavendish will have fun his record-breaking Tour de France stage win, his coach, Vasilis Anastopoulos, already is aware of the rating.
“An enormous get together tonight,” he advised the press gathered exterior the Astana-Qazaqstan bus. “A Greek get together, that is for certain. We will smash lots of plates on the lodge tonight. Vino [Alexandre Vinokourov, team manager] goes to pay rather a lot tonight, I can assure that.”
A Greek get together might sound a bit off the wall for a Brit on a Kazakh group, nevertheless it should not.
This yr, the sprinter has spent a lot time within the nation that Anastopoulos’s youngsters have given him an adoptive identify. “His identify is Markos Cavendishopolous,” the coach mentioned, triggering a ripple of laughter from the journalists.
“At the start of April, he got here to Greece with me. We spent three months in Greece in between [the Tour of] Turkey, [Tour de] Hungary and Tour de Suisse. We educated day-after-day collectively, believed within the course of – I can inform you that it was not a straightforward one. However we by no means stopped believing that this is able to come true.”
The assumption, in the long run, was not misplaced. Exterior an uninspiring industrial property on the outskirts of the village of Saint-Vulbas, Cavendish made historical past because the all-time stage win report holder of the Tour de France. He now counts thirty 5 victories, from his first in 2008, to his newest on Wednesday afternoon.
(Picture credit score: Getty Photographs)
The plan for breaking the report was hatched in December final yr. ‘Challenge 35’, because it turned recognized inside Astana-Qazaqstan, promised to ship one of many sport’s crowning moments. Anastopoulos was put in command of main it.
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“We began with our coaching camps already from December,” the coach mentioned. “I feel in December, usually, he spent solely 4 days at residence.”
That quantity has since solely expanded to “most 15 days”, Anastopoulos estimates, that means Cavendish has spent extra time together with his coach than his family this yr. “I hope he does not hate me for that,” the 48-year-old smiled.
After a prolonged spring stint in Greece, Cavendish travelled to final month’s Tour de Suisse, the place he saved a low profile, constructing his climbing legs by way of the Alps. Afterwards, he returned as soon as once more to Anastopoulos’s residence nation.
“We spent the entire week doing dash work, due to all of the climbs we did earlier than,” the coach mentioned. “The information I had advised me that he was able to doing it.
“You noticed right this moment why he is such a giant champion. He is 39 years outdated. Many of the guys mentioned he isn’t going to make it. He proved them mistaken in 2021, after which he proved everybody mistaken once more in 2024. He is simply phenomenal.”
It was in 2021 that Anastopoulos and Cavendish first struck up a relationship and commenced working collectively at Fast-Step. That summer season on the Tour, having gone 5 years winless on the race, the sprinter received 4 phases and equalled the all-time report, drawing stage with Eddy Merckx.
He returned to the race in 2022, his thoughts centered on another victory. That likelihood, nonetheless, was cruelly pulled away from him midway by way of day eight, when he crashed, broke his collarbone, and deserted the race.
“I advised him, ‘Mate, if you happen to proceed, we’re collectively, we’ll make it’,” Anastopoulos remembers. “On the evening that he was on the hospital, after he had the surgical procedure, we promised one another that we’d simply go for another.”
(Picture credit score: Getty Photographs)
This yr’s route introduced eight flat phases, so the pair knew they’d have a number of cracks on the report. “Our greatest problem was these three days in Italy,” Anastopoulos mentioned. “We noticed the primary day he was struggling due to the warmth, however we had been by no means in a panic. We managed issues.
“Yesterday, I feel we made an ideal plan on arriving simply within the time restrict, with out spending an excessive amount of [energy]. When the grupetto went away yesterday on the final climb, we advised him to remain calm, observe his personal watts – the watts we had already predicted earlier than – in an effort to arrive right this moment as contemporary as potential.”
So contemporary, actually, that Cavendish’s flip of pace in Saint-Vulbas was staggering. Darting throughout the highway, he held off final yr’s inexperienced jersey winner, Jasper Philipsen, a person 13 years his junior, thought-about to be the most effective sprinter on this planet.
What is the secret to Cavendish’s longevity? “Onerous work,” replied Anastopoulos. “He is phenomenal. He can do the work like no person else. That is what makes him such a giant champion.
“He was underneath strain. All people was speaking about it; 35, 35, from the beginning of the season, when he introduced that he would proceed for another season. You can not think about how a lot strain this man was underneath. However he is an important champion, and solely champions can deal with this strain.”
Now, Anastopoulos continued, the plan is for Cavendish to “win as a lot as potential” in his farewell Tour. “We’re not going to cease,” he mentioned. There could possibly be extra Greek events to come back, and a plate scarcity throughout rural France.
