LONDON (Dispatches) - Britain’s Mark Cavendish won his first stage at the Tour de France for five years in a thrilling sprint finish on stage four in Fougeres.
Cavendish, 36, rolled back the years as he finished ahead of Nacer Bouhanni and Jasper Philipsen.
Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel kept the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
Cavendish’s victory came at the end of a race which featured a riders’ protest after Monday’s crash-affected stage three.
Geraint Thomas and 2020 runner-up Primoz Roglic were among those involved in crashes, and on Tuesday the peloton came to a halt for a minute shortly after the rollout from Redon, before beginning a go-slow ride for the first 10km.
But on a Tour that has already featured some incredible stories, Cavendish’s resurgence, at a finish where he also won in 2015, will take some eclipsing.
A long battle with Epstein-Barr virus and a succession of injuries was followed by a diagnosis of clinical depression in 2018, and he did not register a single win in 2019 or 2020 leaving him without a team heading into this season.
However, he has repaid the faith placed in him by Deceuninck-Quick-Step boss Patrick Lefevere. Five wins during the season made him the ideal last-minute stand-in when Irishman Sam Bennett was ruled out through injury.
And the way in which the Manx rider collapsed in tears and was embraced by team-mates and rivals alike underlined the scale of his achievement, after a three-year absence from the race.