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Kittell has Gaviria and Ewen snapping at his heels and Greipel, Viviani and Cav there for when things go wrong. It'll be hard for him to beat Cav's tally.
Cippollini was quite dismissive of Cav in Rouler (not that they don't have history), claiming Cav's winning streak was due to a lack of competition rather than any ability. I think Cav in his pomp had plenty of ability, but is the sprint field better now than then ?
Ste_S-
Gaviria has won one WT race, a stage of Tirreno. He looks promising, but that promise is nowhere near being confirmed yet. Ewen looks good, but the majority of his wins have been in small races, and so far in this Giro he's been nowhere near winning. He also needs time to develop.
Only Greipel and Cavendish offer a genuine threat to Kittel, but they are both the wrong side of thirty so will only decline now. If Kittel stays healthy, then I'd expect him to dominate Tour sprints for at least the next two years, but I doubt he can keep that going for four or five years. I could be wrong though.
Are sprints better know than before? That's a hard one to answer but I think sprint trains are far better organised now than they've ever been, and do a shorter, but faster leadout than in the Cipollini and Cavendish at HTC eras. Teams do a lot more analysis of the finishes and feed that into their strategy, but ultimately it still comes down to who can put out the most power, speed and control in the final 200 metres.
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you can't compare kittel with gaviria. they haven't raced each other and with commitments to the same team, they probably won't. apples and apples but not applesauce.
andyp
sergioflorez
I think Cavendish's longevity is fairly unique, but it'll be interesting to see how Kittel does over the next 18 months or so. He looks so dominant at the moment, but I wonder if his lack of racing last year will have an effect on the second half of his season. Pure speculation, but he raced so little last year that I think he'll be missing some endurance come July.
But to beat Cavendish, he's basically going to have to win 4 stages a year for the next 5 years. Which is a big ask. He's 28 later this week, so isn't getting any younger. I think there's always a dominant sprinter, but any period of dominance tends to be 3-4 years max before either someone else comes along who's stronger or they start to lose their edge. We'll see.
But his hair is lovely. Cavendish never had good hair.