Marc Cavendish was last in the Tour de France 2018 after crashing the year before.

That time he failed completely and as recently as last year it sounded like he was considering ending his career.

Now he is back as the winner on the biggest of stages when he took his 31st stretch victory at the Tour de France.

With 31 victories, he is only three behind record holder Eddy Merckx.

- Honestly, I never thought I would come back, but the stars were right in some way, says Cavendish.

Second in the sprint was the Frenchman Nacer Bouhanni and the third Belgian Jasper Philipsen.

The stage began with the cyclists protesting against the lack of safety during the classic race.

All competitors stopped and stood still for a minute before continuing the stage.

The overall leader in the Tour is the Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel.

MORE BIKE: Here Mohoric hits a freewheel with the bike under the giro (May 16)

Javascript is disabled

Javascript must be turned on to play video

Read more about browser support

The browser is not supported

SVT does not support playback in your browser.

We therefore recommend that you switch to another browser.

Read more about browser support

Here Mohoric hits a freewheel with the bike under the giro Photo: SNTV