Mark Cavendish's path to his record 35th win at the Tour de France was via Greece. Vassilis Anastopoulos joined Cavendish's entourage this season, but had previously worked with Cavendish at Quick Step.

Indeed, Cavendish spent much of the 2024 campaign away from home, and Anastopoulos introduced extended high-altitude training to prepare the Astana-Kazakstan rider.

"It was hard work," Anastopoulos told reporters shortly after Cavendish won stage 5 of the Tour in San Valva. "We already started training camp in December, and I think we were only home for four days in December and January. We went to Colombia, worked really hard, and he got his first stage win there."

Cavendish's initial plans were interrupted by an illness he suffered during the Tour of the UAE, and by late March he was no longer scheduled to compete in some of the Belgian classics. The Tour of Turkey was then added to his schedule, and he competed in the Tour of Hungary and the Tour de Suisse. However, his base camp was in Greece with Anastopoulos.

"We had to completely change our plans and start again, but we never panicked," Anastopoulos said.

Unlike his previous team, Astana had built a team around Cavendish that would compete in the Tour in July.

"At the beginning of April, Mark came to Greece with me. He spent three months in Greece in between Turkey, Hungary, and Switzerland. He spent three months in Greece in between Turkey, Hungary, and Switzerland. I can tell you it was not easy, but we never stopped believing that this would happen."

Cavendish moved up in the finish of stage 5 thanks to his insight, but the 39-year-old Cavendish, with his incredible speed, held off the likes of Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Desseuninck), who is expected to dominate the sprint victories in this year's Tour He held off a determined and determined teammate to take the stage win.

Anastopoulos claimed that he had expected that after perusing the data from Cavendish's final training block before the Tour.

"The data I had said Cavendish had the ability to do it. He returned to Greece right after the Tour de Suisse and did a week of sprint training."

Anastopoulos admitted that his big worry was how fresh Cavendish would be going into this Tour's group sprint after the toughest early part of the race in Italy. Cavendish suffered heatstroke in the tough opening stage to Rimini and had to cross the Galibier Pass on stage 4.

"Our biggest challenge was the three days in Italy," said Anastopoulos. On the first day, he suffered from the heat, but he never panicked."

"Even when Gruppetto got separated on the last climb, I told him to stay calm and stick to his [pre-predicted] wattage so that he could arrive as fresh as possible for today's stage.

Cavendish won his first Tour victory in 2008 and had 25 Tour victories by the time he reached his 30th birthday; by age 31 he had 30 Tour victories, but after four stage wins in 2016, illness would plague his career.

On the verge of retirement in the winter of 2020, Cavendish was handed a lifeline by Quick Step. When Sam Bennett's knee injury unexpectedly opened up a selection slot for the Tour, Cavendish responded with four stage wins and a points prize.

Cavendish tied Eddy Merckx's record of 34 Tour wins in Carcassonne that year, but missed a chance to surpass it on the Champs-Elysées.After leaving the Quick Step team in 2022, Cavendish moved to Astana last season. After crashing out of the Tour, he backtracked on that decision, opting to come back one last time for the elusive 35th win.

"He was always under pressure," said Duchemin. 'When he announced he was going to run one more season, everyone was talking about 35 wins. You can't imagine how much pressure he was under. It's a tremendous amount of pressure. But he is a great champion and only a champion can withstand this pressure."

"You saw today why he is a big champion. He is 39 years old. Most players thought he would never make it. He proved them wrong once in 2021 and again in 2024. He is a phenomenon."

Cavendish achieved his stated goal, but Anastopoulos dismissed the idea of redeeming himself for his parting of the Manxman during the rest of the Tour.

"No, I'm not going to stop," he said. We have another chance tomorrow. I want to win as much as possible. So we can't stop. Our goal is to arrive in Nice, unfortunately not in Paris. We want to win two or three more races before he quits.

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