CEBU, Philippines - Eddy Merckx is the greatest cyclist in the universe. He won the Tour and Giro 5 times, won the World's and Paris-Roubaix 3 times, Liege-Bastogne-Liege 5 times, Milan-San Remo 7 times…well, you get the picture. His winning percentage throughout his career is 33%, meaning, he won 1 out 3 races he entered, a record unlike to be broken in the future.
But he has a record that is likely to be broken by Mark Cavendish, the most prolific stage winner in the Tour since 2008. When Merckx retired in 1977, he had 34 stage wins to his credit in the Tour but Cavendish, still 28yo, is now breathing heavily on that record.
Yesterday, he won stage 5 in a classic. The Missile outgunned the likes of Peter Sagan, Edvald Boasson-Hagen and Andre Greipel, outmuscling Greipels team Lotto inside the laskm! As usual, it was a nerve-wracking final kilometers but Cav's team, Quickstep, was too good and delivered Cav who won by a bike and a half for his 24th stage win. I guess the team felt so bad in losing to Orica-GreenEDGE by 1sec in yesterdays' TTT, they had to show off. Unless he gets injured and don't get to ride the Tour, I believe he has a good chance of surpassing the Cannibal. Tomorrow is flat so it's another Cav stage. Good luck to his rivals!
In the meantime, Simon Gerrans is still in the yellow jersey although we all know that he is just keeping it warm until Saturday’s first mountain stage. Just wondering though what OGE was doing, chasing the 4-man breakaway, at a time when the yellow jersey wasn't in trouble. Either the team director wasn't paying attention or they wanted the media mileage......The four-man breakaway was composed of a Japanese, a Dutch, a Khazak and a Gaudaloupen.