Tour de France 2021: Cavendish wins stage 10 as Pogacar stays in yellow – live reaction!

12.00pm EDT 12:00

Cavendish closes in on Merckx record

Stage 10 report from Valence: Mark Cavendish took advantage of a perfect lead-out to win the 33rd stage of his Tour de France career and move within one of Eddy Merckx’s record.

Updated at 12.00pm EDT

11.45am EDT 11:45

Mark Cavendish speaks …

“It was old-shool, run-of-the-mill, like you read in a cycling magazine lead-out,” he tells a Tour reporter when asked how he won today’s stage. “You just get the lads on the front to pull as fast as they can so nobody can come up and try to come past you and then do the finish.

“We knew this finish because … I didn’t make it last time we did this finish because I got dropped. It was in 2015 the year Greipel won it. We studied it and knew that if we took the last corner wide we could keep the speed. We wwere confident we had the team for the sprint despite the split.

“Again, I’m just humbled, man. You’ve got the winner of the Tour of Flanders, you’ve got the World Champion who’s also had the yellow jersey here, you’ve got Michael Morkov who’s going for the Olymnpics … they’re all just leaving everything on the road for me. I haver to finish it off, y’know. I didn’t really do anything apart from the last 150 metres.”

11.38am EDT 11:38

Cavendish is beside himself with delight. One by one, he hugs each and every one of his Deceuninck Quick-Step teammates, who are unquestionably the best lead-out team in the business. This is an astonishing sporting comeback we’re seeing from the Manx Missile.

11.36am EDT 11:36

Cavendish gets a perfect lead-out. He kicked clear, turned on the after-burners and was able to hold off the challenge of Wout van Aert and Jasper Philipsen by about half a wheel width. He is now just one stage win shy of Eddy Merckx’s all time record.

Updated at 12.01pm EDT

11.34am EDT 11:34

Cavendish wins the stage!!!

Mark Cavendish makes it 33 stage wins in the Tour de France!

Britain’s Mark Cavendish sprints to win the tenth stage of the Tour de France. Photograph: Daniel Cole/AP

Updated at 12.33pm EDT

11.33am EDT 11:33

500m to go: Bouhanni, Sagan, Cavendish, Matthews and Wout van Aert are all in contention.

11.32am EDT 11:32

1km to go: Cavendish’s three-man train remains intact, towing their man along. Michael Matthews is on his wheel.

11.31am EDT 11:31

3.5km to go: Cavendish is four riders back at the front, with three members of his lead-out train in front of him. Can they keep that pace going or have they shoveled too much coal into the furnace too early?

Updated at 11.31am EDT

11.28am EDT 11:28

6km to go: Having been caught in the split, Andre Greipel, formerly a bunch sprint winner in Valence, is back in the front bunch.

11.26am EDT 11:26

8 min: DSM have been caught out by the wind and will do well to get their sprinter Cess Bol back into contention for the finish. Mark Cavendish remains in the front bunch about 20 riders back. “It’s a great talent to have to be able to float around in that position like that,” says Sean Kelly.

11.22am EDT 11:22

10km to go: The peloton has split into three distinctive groups. Richard Carapaz from Ineos Grenadiers is near the front of the first one, trying to put some pressure on Pogacar.

11.21am EDT 11:21

13km to go: Jumbo-Visma, Deceuninck Quick-Step and Movistar are all trying to force the issue at the front of the bunch, while crosswinds are causing cracks further back in the bunch. There is some serious sprinting and GC talent at the front of the peloton, going at a ridiculous speed trying to avoid getting left behind. Cavendish remains in a good position and Sonny Colbrelli is on his wheel.

11.17am EDT 11:17

16km to go: There’s a split in the bunch. Sagan, Cavendish and Wout van Aert are in the front group, which has opened a small gap on the yellow jersey group. It’s soon closed but they are going at a ferocious speed being dictated by Wout van Aert’s Jumbo-Visma team.

Updated at 11.21am EDT

11.15am EDT 11:15

18km to go: The road is wide with the peloton hogging the left-hand side. First and second on GC, Tadej Pogacar and Ben O’Connor are up near the front with their teams.

11.10am EDT 11:10

22km to go: Chapeau – or whatever the Italian for ‘hat” is – to Sonny Cobrelli, who has already rejoined the peloton following that mechanical.

11.06am EDT 11:06

25km to go: Disaster for Sonny Colbrelli, whose rear wheel punctures. He drops out of the bunch, picks up a spare bike and will have a major job on his hands to get back in anything resembling contention for the sprint finish. He’ll almost certainly get back into the bunch, but how much petrol will he use up doing so?

11.03am EDT 11:03

29km to go: The teams of Nacer Bouhanni and Wout van Aert are both getting their sprinters up towards the front of the bunch, where Mark Cavendish is also nicely placed. His Deceuninck Quick-Step teammates are towing the bunch along.

11.01am EDT 11:01

More pedantry to counter Tony Hodgetts’ pedantry: “Geologically Mont Ventoux is part of the Alps,” writes Martin Gilbert. “And the forecast for tomorrow is for a storm with lightning and everything. A geographer would call that ‘a storm in the Alps’. I’ve taken the day off tomorrow so I can watch the whole thing. I hope it doesn’t get cut short.”

10.54am EDT 10:54

36km to go: Michael Matthews’ Team Bike Exchange colleagues put the hammer down at the front of the bunch, hoping to make life difficult for some of the more thoroughbred sprinters. As they do so, assorted riders start getting shelled out the back. “The kettle is boiling and it’s getting hotter and hotter,” says Sean Kelly on Eurosport. Mark Cavendish is nicely placed about 25 places back from the front. The breakaway has been caught.

10.52am EDT 10:52

An email: “Vaucluse happens to be in Provence,” writes Ian Davis.

10.45am EDT 10:45

An email: Ben Tuff has responded to Tony Hodgetts’ pedantry with some of his own. And I for one am inclined to agree with him. “Mount Ventoux is part of The Alps,” he says. “Because it doesn’t have other mountains around it, people make this mistake. MV is actually part of the sub alpine chains and because these are not morphologically distinct from the Western Alp arch, these sub alpine chains are counted as part of the alps proper, including MV. It’s also in Vaucluse. Family holidays were always an education.” We could have done with this debate to pass the time earlier in the stage before things started getting a little interesting.

10.42am EDT 10:42

An email: “That tunnel photo is tremendously evocative to me, and to anyone who has cycled south from Grenoble,” writes Alistair Connor. “You coast over the top of the Vercors and as you exit the tunnel, the light, the air, everything is different, and you’re in Provence.”

10.39am EDT 10:39

46km to go: Tosh van der Sande (Lotto-Soudal) and Hugo Houle (Astana-Premier Tech) are being reeled in and currently have an advantage of just 19 seconds over the chasing pack.

10.34am EDT 10:34

50km to go: On Eurosport, Rob Hatch has revealed that the news from the finish line is that the wind has picked up. The riders might be facing a headwind for the finish. It’s around now that the riders will be starting to get a little nervy.

10.33am EDT 10:33

51km to go: The gap is hovering around the one-minute mark with the leaders heading towards the final uphill of the day. It’s a steep enough climb, uncategorised mind … and unlikely to cause any of the sprinters any problems.

10.25am EDT 10:25

58km to go: It looks like Geraint Thomas might have gone down in that crash I mentioned a few moments ago, as his shorts are ripped. “If he didn’t have bad luck he’d have no luck at all,” says Carlton Kirby on Eurosport’s commentary.

10.23am EDT 10:23

62km to go: An email: “Thomas Voeckler on French TV has been talking about windy conditions and exposed roads towards the end of the stage, with potential fireworks in prospect,” writes Matt Cast. Here’s hoping Tommy is correct because even by the snake-belly low standards of “transition” stages, today’s has been an absolute snoozefest. The gap is at 1min 20sec.

10.17am EDT 10:17

65km to go: All involved in the crash get back on their bikes and set off on in pursuit of the peloton, with Richie Porte shouting angrily at the driver of a race motorbike who pulls alongside him to take a lingering look at his bloodied left elbow.

10.16am EDT 10:16

66km to go: There’s been a minor crash in the bunch, with Luke Rowe and Richie Porte from Ineos Grenadiers hitting the deck. Wout van Aert was among the other riders who were held up. Jumbo-Visma’s Mike Teunissen also comes off his bike.

10.02am EDT 10:02

76km to go: The post-lunch gap goes back out to 1min 50sec, with Tosh van der Sande and Hugo Houle ploughing their lonely furrow.

9.53am EDT 09:53

81km to go: As the riders pass through the feed zone, the gap closes to a minute.

9.51am EDT 09:51

An email: “Mont Ventoux is in Provence, not the Alps, so no Alpine storm tomorrow,” writes pedantry’s Tony Hodgetts. “A procession for Pogacer tomorrow though, in the big chain ring, accelerating away from the whole peloton at will.”