Mark Cavendish has his sights firmly set on Eddy Merckx’s record haul of Tour de France stage wins when the Grand Tour begins in earnest this weekend.

The Manx Missile currently boasts 30 victories in Le Tour stages on his palmares to date, only four behind the legendary Belgian star, who is regarded by many as the greatest cyclist in history.

With numerous possible sprint stages throughout the prestigious three-week race - including three in the opening four days - Cav could well cement his position as arguably the greatest sprinter the sport has seen.

The 105th Tour de France gets underway in the Vendée region in the west of the country this Saturday and takes in 21 stages, covering a massive 3,351 kilometres in total.

These 21 stages comprise of eight flat, five hilly, six mountain stages and three altitude finishes - La Rosière, Saint-Lary-Soulan col du Portet and the iconic Alpe d’Huez. The race will also feature an individual time trial plus one team time trial as well as two rest days.

This year’s Le Tour includes a total of 26 mountain climbs or hills and altitude finishes ranked in second, first or HC (hors catégorie) class. The majority of these - a dozen - take place in the Alps, while a further 10 are located in the Pyrenees and four in the Massif Central.

Traditionally the first few stages - the Grand Depart - take place outside of France, such as Germany last year, the Netherlands in 2015 and the United Kingdom in 2014.

This year though, except for a short visit of around 15 kilometres in Spain during stage 16 between Carcassonne and Bagnères-de-Luchon, the Tour will remain inside the borders of France.

The field of more than 170 riders will also be faced with tricky cobbled sections - a feature of many of the Spring Classics - during the ninth stage from Arras to Roubaix.

Saturday’s opening stage is a pancake flat affair over 189 kilometres from Noirmoutier-en-l’Ã?le to Fontenay-le-Comte which should hopefully end in a sprint finish, in which Cav will hopefully feature prominently.

Sunday’s 183km stage from Mouilleron-Saint-Germain to La Roche-sur-Yon is extremely similar and, while Monday’s affair is the first time trial of the race, Tuesday’s stage from La Baule to Sarzeau could well end in another sprint finish before a couple of hilly stages in northwestern France.

Three more flat stages follow from Fougères to Chartres, Dreux to Amiens Métropole and the aforementioned Arras Citadelle to Roubaix prior to the race heading into the mountains for several gruelling stages where the overall general classification becomes the main focal point.

After a brief respite in stage 13 from Bourg d’Oisans to Valence, there’s very little relief for the sprinters until the final few days of this year’s tour before the race finishes with the traditional showpiece finale on the Champs-Ã?lysées in Paris on July 29.

Cav’s preparations for this year’s Le Tour have not been ideal, having suffered a series of hefty crashes during spring which curtailed the early part of his season.

One such crash - at the Milan-San Remo - resulted in the Manxman having to withdraw from the Isle of Man’s Commonwealth Games team.

However, in recent weeks he has been on the comeback trail and successfully completed the Tours of California and Slovenia, as well as the Adriatica Ionica Race in which he claimed a fine second place on the penultimate stage in Italy.

The Manxman also competed valiantly in Sunday’s British National Road Race Championships in Northumberland, although he did not finish as he was one of a large number of riders pulled from the race late on.

The Team Dimension Data star has only one stage victory to his name in 2018 so far, but it should be noted that the Manxman had a similar run in 2016 - when he won a comparatively low (by his standards) three stages - in the build-up to Le Tour, but then proceeded to blitz his way to four stunning victories in France to take his tally to 30 wins overall.

His main rivals are likely to be three-time UCI world champion Peter Sagan - who was infamously disqualified from last year’s race for his role in a crash which led to Cav’s withdrawal - plus Marcel Kittel, John Degenkolb, Fernando Gaviria, Dylan Groenewegen, Sonny Colbrelli and Michael Matthews.

Speaking after his selection was confirmed for Le Tour, Cav commented: ’I’m so excited to be able to ride the Tour de France again in my career, for the third time for Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka.

’I’m delighted to be part of a strong team and I’ll be looking at getting closer to that record of Eddy Merckx.’

- ITV4 and Eurosport will show daily live coverage of this year’s Tour de France, plus highlights programmes every evening throughout the three weeks.

- Follow @iomsportsdesk on Twitter and Facebook plus check out www.iomtoday.co.im/sport for all the latest updates on Cav’s progress.

Mark Cavendish has only one win to his name so far in 2018 - the fifth stage of the Dubai Tour (pictured above) in February - but the Manx Missile will have his sights set on adding to his 30 career stage wins in the Tour de France which begins this Saturday Photo: Yuzuru Sunada