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Cavendish’s team had two people, sprint coach Erik Zabel and team owner Bob Stapleton, riding the course ahead of the race. From the Camargue they reported that when the road turned sharply, with 31km to go, they would suddenly be hit by a crosswind. Just before that turn, Cavendish and his team-mates massed at the front; then they rode hard, in formation, as they came out of the bend. With the wind coming from the left, they hugged the right gutter: the other riders, each one scrabbling for shelter behind the rider in front, stretched in a line behind them, and snapped. Twenty-nine riders raced clear, including six of Cavendish’s team-mates. The sprint victory in the hideous, garish Mediterranean resort was a formality.

Two weeks later, after the Pyrenees and the Alps, and stage nineteen presents Cavendish with a chance – a slim chance – of a fifth win. But he knows that the climb at the end, the 787-metre Col d’Escrinet, is a potentially insurmountable obstacle. The Cipressa and Poggio were pimples in comparison: the Escrinet was 14km long, averaging a gradient of 4.1 per cent, but, as Riis warned, much steeper at the bottom.

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