There were some touching moments immediately after the race when Cav’s sprint rivals kept searching him out to give him such lovely heart-felt congratulations. Biniam Girmay, who won his first-ever stage earlier this week, burst in on him post-TV interview to give him a big hug. Lovely stuff.

Here’s the video of Cavendish’s historic sprint win. Enjoy!

Some reaction from readers now:

“Unbelievable – what’s the French for ‘Sacrebleu’?” – Kieran Monaghan.

“Thank you, your correspondent’s worthy analysis (sorry, James Cavell) of how Sir Cav couldn’t possibly win made that win even sweeter” – Tony Russell.

“WOOOOOOHOOOOOO. YAY CAV” – anonymous.

I’m in disbelief. It was a big gamble coming in trying to win. It was a big gamble for my boss trying to come to the Tour de France for this. You have to go all in. We did it. We worked at what we had to do. How we built the team. Every little detail. You can see what it means. It doesn’t mean we are going to be top of the UCI rankings but the Tour de France is bigger than everything. The first day was bad but it normally takes me days to get into it. I’ve done 15 Tour de Frances now. I don’t like to suffer but you work at it and things still have to go your way. We didn’t nail it as a team as we wanted to do [on this stage] and the boys improvised and got me in position and I got on to whatever train I had to do.”

Cyclists from other teams all want a hug with the history-maker. What a legend. After that first stage when he struggled with heatstroke, it was hard to imagine this 35th win was ever going to happen. He’s 39 years old. He’s still electric. He’s the Millennium Falcon on wheels. Here’s our snap report:

Cavendish is just hugging every single one of his teammates and drinking it all in. He wears a smile as wide as the Irish Sea and is just walking round lit up. Bol, his teammate, says: “He fucking nailed it!” He really did.

That was incredible! Cavendish picked his line and followed it through, finding space on the left and then bursting out from the pack as we have seen so often before and carrying it through to the line. Unbelievable!

Cavendish breaks from the pack and stamps down on his pedals … and the Manx Missile has done it! The 39-year-old rolls back the years and spins his legs furiously to pip his sprint rivals to the line on stage five and make history. He holds his arms aloft and then cups his disbelieving face in his hands. Such emotion. What an achievement. He leaves the great Eddy Merckx behind him on 34 stage wins. He’s completed “Project 35”. Enjoy the moment, Mark!

700m: The pace picks up and Cavenish is in sixth place, pedalling furiously but not yet at full pace …

1.5km: Girmay has come up near the front and Cavendish is right in the middle jostling for position. This is a great chance for Cav.

2.3km: Intermarche’s riders take the leading group round a sharp right corner. They’re safely round it and Cavendish is in a good position.

4km: Team Visma is up at the front but the lead keeps switching hands as everyone has a go at grinding the gears at the front. They’re through the safe zone now, too. Time to shine, sprinters!

6km: Pogacar has moved up towards the front to stay out of trouble as the peloton moves round a bit of road furniture. All the teams are still up there and everyone is still in contention.

8km: The peloton is stretching out with each team trying to keep together. Astana –Cavendish’s team – lost position at the front but move up on the right hand side to recover.

10km: The riders are nearing Saint-Vulbas and are going at a fair pace now. There’s a possible crosswind on an open stretch of road so they bunch up a bit to protect their main men. Meanwhile, the radios keep buzzing with the same message to “move up”.

13km: It hasn’t been the most eventful race but let’s hope we have some excitement at the end. The Lidl sport director has just been on the radio and boasted proudly that Mads Pedersen is “super strong” and there are “sprinters with tired legs out there” so “stay at the front”. He makes it sound like Mads is going to cruise it. All those radios are probably abuzz with similar messages. “You’ve got this in the bag, lads” etc.

16km: The conditions have improved dramatically since they’ve come back down that little hill. The rain has stopped and it looks much brighter. There’s still a near-calamity in the peloton when a bone-headed spectator steps into the road to take a photo and almost takes out a few riders. People!

19km: The pace is building up as we near the end – and fair play to sprint contender Alexander Christoff, who has made up a minute to get back into the main pack after his mishap on the descent earlier.

21km: Here’s a picture of Thomas Gachignard getting some medical assistance from a skilful support team member. It always amazes me how team members can provide such specific and nimble support while hanging out of a moving car.

25km: Christophe Laporte is the next rider to take a tumble on the slick surface. He came off on a traffic island but, thankfully for him – and his teammate and GC contender Jonas Vingegaard – he is back up quickly and pedalling like mad to get back up with the peloton.

27km: The pace picks up as the riders speed down the descent on the Côte de Lhuis. One sprinter who probably won’t be in contention for today’s stage is Uno-X Mobility’s Alexander Christoff. He appears to have slipped off his bike on the way down. He’s OK but needs to get himself together and getting back to the peloton will take it out of him.

32km: James Cavell is here with an email Sir Cav fans might not want to read: “Watching both Dutch and Belgian coverage of the Tour I get the impression the idea that ‘everyone’ wants a Cavendish stage win is a little wide of the mark. In fact, it isn’t as though they don’t want a Cavendish victory, it’s just that it’s not something that is viewed as very likely. It’s almost like being 39 and getting dropped whenever the road heads uphill might be a sign of not being in the kind of form needed to win a Tour sprint stage. If you’re getting dropped on climbs that last five to 20 minutes, it means your threshold and maximum aerobic capacity power to weight ratio is inadequate. While sprinting is a totally different phenomenon, the final 10km of any sprint stage is all about threshold and max aerobic capacity, then having the ability to produce 1200 watts plus for a few seconds at the end of that. ‘Experience’ isn’t going to compensate for deficiencies in fitness. Sadly, I feel that Cavendish simply isn’t going to be able to get near enough to the front, or have the gas left over to produce any sort of sprint.” Well, he has made it over that little bump easily enough but there is plenty of road left before the finish and some iffy weather, too.

35km: The plucky pair have been swallowed up by the peloton and every team appears to be up at the front now. Jonas Abrahamsen speeds away to get some points in the race for the polkadot jersey (king of the mountains) and then drops back again.

36km to go: Every team director is getting on the radio to tell their riders to get to the “second line” – so just off the front – and hold position. From what I can make out Astana have a little huddle there and UAE have presence too.

37km to go: Matteo Vercher and Clément Russo are only 18 seconds in front of the peloton now. Their race is run. Good effort, lads. They’ve just started the climb up the Côte de Lhuis. If the pace is particularly fast it could drain the legs of pure sprinters such as Cavendish.

42km to go: It really is raining cats and dogs out there now and the roads are holding on to the water more than is helpful. There are puddles and spray everywhere. Astana sports director, Mark Renshaw, has just given instructions to his team to start heading up to the front to get in a good position for the leadout for Cavendish. They are approaching the category four Côte de Lhuis (34km) and don’t want to fall back.

46km to go: Uh oh. It’s raining now. It could be a sketchy finish in Saint-Vulbas. Riders are grabbing rain jackets or flinging them to the side because they can’t be bothered with them. Would be a decent souvenir if you were watching on.

49km to go: Mads Pedersen keeps hold of the green jersey after taking 15 points in that intermediate sprint, with his nearest rival, Biniam Girmay, taking 11. It’s very early days, mind.

53km to go: One of the two riders in the breakaway, Russo, rolls over the intermediate sprint in first place but, in truth, it was uncontested with Vercher. The gap back to the peloton has narrowed to 1min11sec. The plucky pair are being eaten up.

55km to go: Pello Bilbao was caught up in that tumble. The Bahrain rider doesn’t look happy as he races back up the road but you can’t really blame Pogacar. He himself had his view blocked by riders who were veering late to avoid the bollard.