Cav ready to say au revoir to Tour

EMOTIONS will be running high for Mark Cavendish over the next three weeks whatever happens on the long road from Bilbao to Paris

- IAN PARKER

Over the course of the past two decades, the Manxman has earned a reputation as the greatest sprinter cycling has seen, and nowhere has he done more to burnish that reputation than at the Tour de France.

Now, having announced during the Giro d’Italia in May that this will be his last season, Cavendish will line up for the 14th and final time at cycling’s greatest race.

For Cavendish it is a chance to say goodbye to a race he loves like no other.

“It’s above the sport,” he said of the Tour. “The consequences of winning and losing that race are so much greater than anything. Everything around it is just bigger. The highs, the lows, it’s so special.”