Five months after unprecedented success at the Beijing velodrome, the men and
women from Team GB are household names. Chris Hoy has his knighthood, while
Rebecca Romero, Victoria Pendleton and Bradley Wiggins are fêted wherever
they go. Mark Cavendish, however, remains the sport’s forgotten hero of
2008.
This is the man who won four stages in the Tour de France and gave up the
chance of a fifth to get to the Olympics and to team up with Wiggins for the
Madison. The Times caught up with Cavendish during winter training in
Majorca and he remains bitter about events on the Laoshan track. Wiggins had
won two pursuit gold medals before they finished ninth in the Madison, but
Cavendish returned empty-handed — the only member of the track team not to
win a medal.
Speaking at his Team Columbia training camp, Cavendish, 23, said that he would
“never ride the track again” and that he regrets his decision to abandon
last year’s Tour to prepare for Beijing. “If I didn’t think I owed something
to British Cycling, I wouldn’t even have ridden the Olympics last year,” he
said. “I was absolutely torn about stopping at the Tour. In the end, I did
stop, but in hindsight I shouldn’t have.”
The Manx rider stormed out of the Olympic velodrome in August after his
usually reliable pairing with Wiggins failed. Their anticlimactic
performance, marked by a sudden loss of form on Wiggins’s part, was the only
wrong note in Great Britain’s symphony of success and the pair have barely
spoken since. Wiggins has also moved on from Columbia, Cavendish’s road
team, to a new sponsor, Garmin-Chipotle.
Cavendish’s four stage wins in the Tour was an unprecedented achievement for a
British cyclist before he pulled out of the race on the eve of the Alpine
stages. A prestigious fifth win in Paris, on the Champs Élysées, had been a
real possibility, but against the advice of some, he opted to keep his pact
with Wiggins.
“There was nothing more important than the Olympics for a British athlete,”
Bob Stapleton, the team manager at Columbia, said. “I am not sure what
happened in China, but I know that Mark felt pretty devastated over it. He
gave up a lot. He sacrificed the chance of five Tour stage wins, including
the Champs Élysées. Entire careers have been built around that.”
Cavendish’s bitter disappointment in Beijing was evident as soon as he and
Wiggins climbed off their bikes after the Madison. While Wiggins slumped
exhaustedly in a trackside chair, Cavendish immediately sped out of the
velodrome on his road bike without exchanging a word with his team-mate.
Cavendish admitted he had been angry. “Of course I was,” he said. “I was
really disheartened because I had sacrificed so much to win Olympic gold and
it didn’t happen. When you’re that successful in the Tour, to then leave for
something else and then for it not to pay off — gutted.”
Cavendish also dismissed suggestions that he would automatically join Team
GB’s proposed European road-racing team, who, with the Tour organisers
closely monitoring developments, appear likely to compete in the sport’s
premier race in 2010.
“It’s naive to think that I would automatically go to a team because it’s
British,” Cavendish said. “I’m not in demand because I’m British — I’m in
demand because I’m the best sprinter in the world. I’m happy in this team.
Here I can win bike races and have a good time around the dinner table.”
It has been an uneasy winter for Cavendish. Hoy, Wiggins, Romero, Pendleton et
al have been showered with honours and plaudits, but the sprinter from the
Isle of Man has become Team GB’s forgotten star. “They succeeded, so you
can’t be bitter about them being praised for their success,” he said. “I
just get upset that I don’t get the recognition for my achievements. There’s
a British disproportion about the Olympics. In any other country in the
world, the Tour overshadows the Olympics, but that’s how it is.”
With 18 wins, Cavendish was the most successful rider in elite road cycling
last year. As well as his quartet of victories in France, he won two stages
in the Giro d’Italia, stages in the Tours of Ireland and Missouri, and
British and world titles on the track with Wiggins. “It’s a common
misconception that sprinting is the easiest part of cycling,” he said.
“Maybe I’m biased, but I think sprinting is the hardest part. Every day
sprinters have to give it full gas, but on a flat day a climber can sit in
the peloton and take it easy. Every flat day, rolling day and mountain day,
the sprinters have to be ready to give full gas — just to get through. You
have to work harder.”
Cavendish’s self-belief has led to accusations of arrogance. “I know the work
I’ve put in, so when I win I will be confident,” he said. “But at the other
end of the scale, a sprinter can be among the most self-critical. If I lose,
I’m the most self-loathing person on the planet.”
This season, his main objective will be the points classification for
all-round consistency, signified by the green jersey, in the Tour de France,
which runs from July 4 to 26. “My big goal for the year is to get to Paris
and hopefully the green jersey should come pretty naturally,” he said. “This
year’s Tour overall looks harder, but in terms of bunch sprints, there are
more opportunities for me.”
Stapleton believes that Cavendish needs to expand his range to win the green
jersey. “Will Cav have the endurance and durability? The guys who win the
green jersey pick up points everywhere they can,” Stapleton said. “It might
be better for him to try and win stages and take another year to develop.”
Keeping a watchful eye on his progress will be another rider who was once
labelled brash. Cavendish said: “Lance Armstrong texted George after my
first Tour stage win and said, ‘Well done to Cav.’ George says that it’s
unbelievable how alike we are. I don’t know, but it’s disrespectful for me
to compare myself to Lance, on the bike or off the bike. But I think we both
have that drive. Sometimes that comes over as cocky and arrogant. But you
need it to win.”
Cycling proficiency
Born May 21, 1985
Lives Isle of Man
Nationality British
Turned professional 2006
Sponsor Team Columbia
Significant career wins
2005 World Madison champion, with Rob Hayles
2006 Commonwealth Games, scratch race champion
2007 Winner, Grote Scheldeprijs (from Antwerp to Schoten, Belgium)
2008 World Madison champion, with Bradley Wiggins; wins two stages,
Three Days of De Panne; wins prologue, Tour of Romandie; wins two stages,
Giro d’Italia; wins four stages, Tour de France
