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Tour de France Tour de France 2021, Stage 21: Chatou – Paris Champs-Élysées, 108.4 km

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Took 3 weeks for the teams to work out how to derail Quick Step's leadout, essentially.

I'm pretty conflicted. I like the fact that the record is held by somebody who won all the styles of race rather than just one style of stage so the fact Cavendish was unable to usurp Merckx's record but only match it is in many ways preferable, but simultaneously, one of the things about sprint wins is that they're often eminently forgettable, individually; other than the specific cases like Milan-San Remo and the Worlds, most sprint wins, especially in stage races, tend to be only memorable as part of a statistic. Cavendish holding the record for most stage wins but without really any wins that would go down in the legend of the sport. But if he broke that record at the unofficial Sprinters' Worlds in Paris? That would be different. We haven't had a truly 'special' Champs Elysées moment since 2005, and if Cav had broken the record on the Champs, it would have been such an iconic moment, creating the finality that would be both a huge Champs Elysées moment and would give us a special, memorable win that would go down in Tour lore in a way no other sprint win possibly could, and would have also been the best possible way for him to bow out of the sport if he so wished, twelve years after his first win on the Champs.
 
I am curious who is the last rider to win a mountain, sprint, and time trial stage in a GT?

well i know eddy merckx did it in 1974.

even won the last stage sprint (the last time it ended in the Cipale velodrome) when his old buddy Sercu cut him off and was DQ-ed.

he won TT stages.

He won a couple of mountain stages.

but he has one up on WvA, because he also won two flat stages breaking away from the entire peloton and winning on his own (he won 8 stages that year).

I remember because I watched them on RTB on a black and white TV.
 
Took 3 weeks for the teams to work out how to derail Quick Step's leadout, essentially.

I'm pretty conflicted. I like the fact that the record is held by somebody who won all the styles of race rather than just one style of stage so the fact Cavendish was unable to usurp Merckx's record but only match it is in many ways preferable, but simultaneously, one of the things about sprint wins is that they're often eminently forgettable, individually; other than the specific cases like Milan-San Remo and the Worlds, most sprint wins, especially in stage races, tend to be only memorable as part of a statistic. Cavendish holding the record for most stage wins but without really any wins that would go down in the legend of the sport. But if he broke that record at the unofficial Sprinters' Worlds in Paris? That would be different. We haven't had a truly 'special' Champs Elysées moment since 2005, and if Cav had broken the record on the Champs, it would have been such an iconic moment, creating the finality that would be both a huge Champs Elysées moment and would give us a special, memorable win that would go down in Tour lore in a way no other sprint win possibly could, and would have also been the best possible way for him to bow out of the sport if he so wished, twelve years after his first win on the Champs.

I think Wout winning on the Champs the day after winning a TT in the same race where he won the Mont Ventoux stage qualifies as a truly special moment.
 
Hats off to WVA. Most complete rider in the peloton.

Hats off to Cavendish for an incredible comeback. Hope he shows up next year to try and break the record for most stages won.

Hats off to Vingegaard for his breakthrough in this race. Hopefully he becomes a regular to compete against Pog and Bernal for the next few years.

Hats off to Pog. A second Tour win. He made it look easy but that is also a testament to his greatness.
 

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