With his 163rd professional victory, the British cycling star Mark Cavendish has overtaken the Italian Mario Cipollini in the “eternal” best list and has thus moved up to second place – but the legendary Belgian Eddy Merckx, with his 276 successes, will probably remain the lone leader for a long time.
The 38-year-old Cavendish won the fourth stage of the Tour of Colombia in a sprint as usual on Friday and thus celebrated his first win of the season. For Cavendish it was also his first success after his fall at the Tour de France, in which he suffered a broken collarbone and had to retire.
At that time, he was denied the chance to become the sole record holder for Tour stage wins – he shares the record of 34 successes with Merckx.
“Cav” had actually wanted to end his career at the end of 2023, but revised this decision in view of his forced break and signed with the Astana team. This means he can make another attempt at the sole record on the tour in the summer.
The most successful road bike professionals according to race victories (source: Procyclingstats):
1. Eddy Merckx (Belgium) 276
2. Mark Cavendish (Great Britain) 163
Mario Cipollini (Italy) 163
4. Rik Van Looy (Belgium) 162
5. Roger De Vlaeminck (Belgium) 161
6. Sean Kelly (Ireland) 159
7. Andre Greipel (Rostock) 158
8. Erik Zabel (Unna) 150
Alessandro Petacchi (Italy) 150