Mark Cavendish exclusive: Giro d’Italia stage win impossible without help from ‘legend’ Geraint Thomas

Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan) insists he would not have claimed a fairytale win at the 2023 Giro d’Italia without help from “legend” Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers).

Cavendish was launched into the sprint showdown by friend and former team-mate Thomas, who drove the pace on the front during a frantic finale in Rome just 24 hours after his own dream of winning the overall race unravelled.

“It was special. Rome is special. Anyone who has ever been to Rome, it blows you away. So the Giro finishing in Rome, in front of the Colosseum, the romanticism… It is nice,” Cavendish told Eurosport’s Orla Chennaoui.

“And then you had what G [Thomas] did. I get quite emotional.

“It wouldn’t have happened without G. It just wouldn’t have happened. We wouldn’t have been able to do what we wanted to do without G there.”

Thomas’ decision to front an unlikely sprint train was made more remarkable given he had just lost the leader’s maglia rosa to Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) on the penultimate stage.

With the roads to Rome completely flat, leaving no opportunity to gain time back on Roglic, the 2018 Tour de France champion elected to channel his disappointment by fronting Cavendish’s push for victory.

“I’d said to him: ‘do you fancy doing a lead out?’ And he’s like ‘nah man’,” Cavendish continued, laughing.

“It wasn’t until he passed me… And then he went. I thought maybe he’d do a pull, like a show pull, do a few hundred metres.

“And then you see his ankles go in and he keeps going. He goes onto the nose of his saddle a bit more, he keeps going – he just kept going.

“It was impressive. That wasn’t a show, that was a big old job. Yeah, he’s a legend, isn’t he?”

Thomas and Cavendish were team-mates at Team Sky in 2012, while they were once regulars together in British colours.

One of their finest moments together came at the 2011 Road World Championships where Cavendish claimed a remarkable sprint win after being aided by the selfless work of Thomas, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome and others.

“Of course you always want your mates to succeed. But there’s a group of us that just come through everything – guys like Dave Millar, Brad Wiggins, Steve Cummings, me and G. There’s something more deep rooted than the fact we all ride bikes,” added Cavendish.

“And we also know what it feels like to stop being believed in… like G. And it’s like, he won the Tour de France!

“It’s like when you hold someone at a level, they no longer can succeed, they can only fail. And obviously we have that in common a little bit.”

Cavendish is tied with Belgian icon Eddy Merckx on 34 stage wins at the Tour and begins his quest for the outright record on July 1.

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