Opinion: Mark Cavendish's Giro d'Italia stage win may not be enough to ensure Tour de France selection - but it should

Mark Cavendish will leave the 2022 Giro d’Italia with just the one victory after the teams of the big sprinters were left with eggs of their collective faces by a Dries De Bondt-inspired breakaway in the final flat finish of the race on Thursday. One win is two fewer than Frenchman Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ), who has enjoyed something of a Cavendish-style renaissance in the past fortnight with a hat-trick of triumphs and the maglia ciclamino by a country mile.

Ad/> One win, though, is one more than both Australia’s Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) and Colombia’s Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) – two sprinters who, when bursting onto the scene five years ago, were expected to have consigned Cavendish to the history books by now. Giro d'ItaliaGiro d'Italia Stage 19 — Route map, with GC battle set to ignite agianAN HOUR AGO Instead it’s Cavendish who is making history: a 16th Giro stage win almost a decade after the 15th off the back of levelling Eddy Merckx’s long-standing record on the Tour last summer.

Taking his Tour tally to 35 wins, those four triumphs on his unexpected Grande Boucle comeback for Quick-Step brought a turnaround in the career of a veteran sprinter whose best years most felt were long gone well before his initial mini-revival on the Tour of Turkey, let alone on the world’s biggest bike race where he had failed to shine since 2016. De Bondt denies sprinters to seal stunning Stage 18 win from break It’s credit to the 37-year-old’s enduring class and ability to win sprints against whoever he comes up against that we are still discussing his performances and weighing up whether he is worthy of a place on the Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team for the Tour.

One year ago, such a discussion would be ludicrous. But