When Mark Cavendish was 12 years old he entered his first bike race, just a
few laps on a little circuit near his home on the Isle of Man. All the other
children had mountain bikes. Cavendish was on a little BMX, but he didn’t
care about that because all he was thinking about was beating them. He came
dead last and told his mother, Adele: “I’d have won that if I’d been on a
proper bike.”
For his next birthday, he got his first proper bike, went back to the same
circuit and won. He’d said he was going to win, and he did.
On Friday in Nimes, Cavendish took his fourth Tour de France stage. He is the
first British rider to win more than two stages in a single Tour and at the
age of 23 he is already halfway to equalling Barry Hoban’s British record of
eight Tour stages, which he won between 1967 and 1975.
Cavendish is earning about €600,000 (£476,000) a year, a considerable salary
for a second-year professional. His contract with Team Columbia expires at
the end of 2009 and a rival team manager said that if he were a free agent
at the end of this season, a team hoping to hire him would be looking at
about £1.2m a year.
However, by the time his contract is up for renewal he may be an Olympic
champion on the track, with a few more Tour stages and perhaps even a spell
in the yellow jersey under his belt. Because of his age and the regularity
with which he delivers victories, he could hold out for more than £2m a
year, which would put him among the highest earners in professional cycling.
He is high up on many teams’ shopping lists – most intriguingly, on that of
the proposed all-British team – but Columbia are adamant he is staying put.
Earlier in the season Cavendish partnered Bradley Wiggins to a world title in
the Madison event at Manchester Velodrome, which ensured automatic
qualification for the Olympic Games in Beijing, where the pair will start as
favourites. Clinching a place in the Games was touch and go. The
qualification criteria were so tight and Cavendish and Wiggins were unable
to commit to a full campaign at the winter World Cup track meetings because
of their commitments on the road for their professional team.
Cavendish was never worried. During an early-season discussion about how to
make certain of qualification, he told British Cycling’s performance
director, Dave Brailsford: “Don’t panic, Dave, we’re gonna win the world
championships anyway.”
Then he went to the Giro d'Italia, the second most prestigious stage race, and
won two stages. Cautious voices suggested that he might find the Tour de
France an altogether more demanding event. Not Cavendish, who was undaunted
even after a difficult debut last year when he crashed on the second day in
Canterbury.
“I knew I could win a stage at this Tour,” he says. “It’s not arrogance. If I
think I can win something, I’m not going to be shy, I’m going to say it. The
desire to win has always been in me. Money won’t change me, fame won’t
change me. I just want to win.
“Losing. I can’t cope with it. I can’t stress how much it eats me. I
absolutely hate it. People say to me I must be buzzing after winning, but I
have more sleepless nights when I haven’t won. I think of all the hard work
and the sacrifices and then I think of all the work my teammates have done
for me, and I just can’t stand it.”
Whatever he does, Cavendish wants to prove he’s the best, and he likes to be
told he’s the best too. “I’ve always been competitive, whether it was
school-work or ballroom dancing.”
Ballroom dancing? The fastest cyclist in the world, the man who presses so
hard on the pedals to produce the amazing explosive jump that leaves all his
rivals trailing, is also into ballroom dancing?
His mum runs a dancewear shop, so as a teenager Cavendish was persuaded to
give it a try. Once he had realised there were competitions and a chance to
prove he was the best, that was ample motivation to block out the comments
of those who made fun.
“People used to take the piss out of me for it, but I was good at it and we
won, so I kept at it. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed winning more. Anyway, it
was a good way to meet girls. I met my girlfriend Melissa through my dance
partner, so . . .”
But it was cycling that really put the spring in his step. “I just loved
riding my bike. I was about 14 when I decided I wanted to be a professional
and from then on I just knew I would be.”
He remembers a teacher asking what he would do if his chosen career didn’t
work out, but for Cavendish there was no Plan B. He left school at 16 to
work as a bank cashier so he could earn money to move to Europe at the age
of 18. It was a cool-headed strategy, one that belies the impression given
by his sometimes fiery outbursts.
“I’d already worked out that in order to turn professional I didn’t have to be
a great junior, but I had to be a great amateur. Junior races don’t get you
a pro contract. So I got a job to earn money so that when I was 18 I’d be
able to go to Europe and join a club and get noticed.”
During those two years at the bank Cavendish picked his races carefully,
targeting junior events in Britain he could win without a solid base of
training. He was offered the chance to become a branch manager but turned
down a £24,000 salary in favour of a £3,000-a-year grant to join the British
Cycling academy after an interview at its Manchester Velodrome base.
Rod Ellingworth, who runs the academy, was on the panel. “We looked at his
test results and he didn’t have the most impressive numbers of those we
interviewed, but there was something about him,” he recalls. “You could tell
he was a bike racer. He’d worked out how to win a lot of races for himself
and I wanted to prove that it wasn’t all about what you could do on a static
bike in the lab.”
Ellingworth, who continues to coach and advise Cavendish, remembers some
difficult times early on. On one cold, wet day in the Peak District,
Cavendish was getting dropped on every climb. “They had about 15 miles to go
and I told the rest to carry on while I waited for Mark,” says Ellingworth,
who was following in a car. “I waited at the top of this hill and he was
zigzagging his way up it. When he got to the bumper he stopped and fell
sideways.
“He was on the ground not just crying, he was absolutely bawling his eyes out,
saying, ‘I don’t want to let you down’. He was so frustrated. Even then he
wanted to be the best in the world but he couldn’t keep up with the other
academy riders and he just couldn’t handle it.”
Cavendish remembers those days too, when his confidence took a knock on an
almost daily basis. “It was hard. There were days I was in tears. I was
overweight and nowhere near as fit as I needed to be but Rod never gave up
on me. He taught me how to work. I work very, very hard and I work
ethically. I know the hours of sacrifice and effort I put in. But I find
training difficult because there’s no finishing line.”
Cavendish came into this Tour wanting one stage win, then another, then
another. Next up is the Madison with Wiggins in Beijing. He has said they
are going to win it. It would be a brave man to doubt him.
Lionel Birnie is a journalist with Cycling Weekly
Three and counting
Italian Riccardo Ricco has become the latest rider to test positive for the
banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) in this year’s Tour de France. The
Saunier Duval rider had won both mountain stages so far (stages six and
nine) and was sitting ninth in the overall standings when he was detained by
police on Thursday.
After the announcement of his positive test, his team immediately withdrew
from the Tour ahead of the 12th stage. He follows Spanish riders Moises
Dueñas Nevado and Manuel Beltran in failing a test at this year’s event.
Ricco, 24, who was runner-up in the Giro d’Italia this year, tested positive
after the fourth stage time-trial and was held by French police after being
removed from the team bus. On Friday, his Spanish team Saunier Duval sacked
him and fellow Italian Leonardo Piepoli for ‘doping practices’.
Piepoli had not tested positive during the Tour – the 36-year-old, who won the
10th stage to the summit finish of Hautacam in the Pyrenees, was dismissed
for a ‘violation of the team’s ethics code’.
‘Team manager Mauro Gianetti has lost faith in them and decided to fire them
from the team,’ said Saunier Duval spokesman David Garcia.
