Tour de France 2021: Mark Cavendish - Tour success makes me want to keep cycling career going

Mark Cavendish is now open to continuing his cycling career after an exceptional resurgence at the 2021 Tour de France.

His Deceuninck-Quickstep head Patrick Lefevere suggested Cavendish might have been treating the Tour as a last hurrah after being a surprise sprint inclusion due to Sam Bennett’s late exclusion from the squad.

While on the race, Cavendish was in some of the best form of his life and was able to equal Eddy Merckx’s record of stage victories, with another potential stage win to come on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

However, the 36-year-old Manxman has rediscovered his self-belief and could now extend his career into next season.

"I've thought about it. I've got to talk to this man," Cavendish said at Monday's rest day press conference.

"I can't carry on doing it forever, but I still love it and I've shown I'm still competitive. I'd like to carry on. I love riding my bike. I can carry on doing it as long as my body will let me."

Cavendish said his will to win is undimmed from his first victory over a decade ago.

"The ambition to win is the same now as it was when I was trying to win my first one 13 years ago," Cavendish explained.

"Every opportunity there is, I'd like to win a sprint. But there's no sentiment: it's about wanting to win when the situation arises.

"I don't like to pre-empt how the stages are going to go, but the toughest ones for us are hopefully past, though that doesn't mean it's easy.

"It's a common misconception that the gruppetto just rides in laughing and joking with each other but it's relentless, you know. I'm just lucky I have guys who stay with me and it's become a lot more, kind of, scientific, so you can kind of plan what kind of power-to-weight you can stay at and figure out how much you can lose on each part of the stage. But you're still on it all day and this is probably the hardest Tour de France I've ever done. But hopefully we should be ok."

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