Winning the Championship Would be Massive: Cavendish
Story posted June 26
By Larry Hickmott
Back in March at the Manchester Velodrome, Mark Cavendish became World Madison champion for the second time and since then has gone straight back to the road and in the near future will return to the track before going back to the road yet again. It is a relentless life as a professional cyclist but part of that has come to him because of the great success he has had.
One of the mechanics for GB said the trumpets would come out to herald the return of a king of the road – Mark Cavendish -- but the only person to welcome him into the track centre at Manchester on Wednesday afternoon, besides the members and staff of Team GB, was a person from UK Sport wanting a sample from him for an out of competition dope test.
It was Mark explained, around the 30th test he’s given this year alone and something he doesn’t mind if it helps to ensure the sport is clean and he’s seen to be clean.
Mark was in Manchester to test Olympic track equipment and to do a couple of days of track work in readiness for the Beijing. Whilst his fellow team members in the endurance camp had a day off from the track during their two week training camp at Manchester – their final one before they return to the UK and their pre-Olympic holding camp in Newport, Mark is getting in a few days of track work with the team before he heads off for the Tour de France.
Whilst not a break as such, his time in Manchester does fit in with his taper for the National Championships this weekend and the Tour de France. “It’s good to be back with the lads I’ve grown up with in cycling and the ones who have helped me evolve like Rob (Hayles). He was great to me when I was young and so it’s great to be hanging out with them.”
The Team for the Tour de France was announced on Wednesday and Mark sadly is the only British rider in it. That is perhaps because Team High Road will be trying to be competitive on stages as well as on GC as Rolf Aldag explained. "We plan to be competitive in every stage without losing the focus on the support for Kirchen in the general classification" he told AFP.
"The team has been on a big wave of success this year," said team owner Bob Stapleton. "We bring confidence, team work and good spirit into the Tour. "It was difficult to select the Tour de France team because so many of riders deserved a spot."
The team for the Tour de France is Mark Cavendish (GB), Kim Kirchen (Lux), George Hincapie (USA),
Thomas Lovkvist (Swe), Kanstantsin Sivtsov (Blr), Gerald Ciolek (Ger), Adam Hansen (Aus), Marcus Burghardt (Ger), and Bernhard Eisel (Aut).
Mark has already done his home work and named many of the early stages as possible targets for a sprint victory. After his wins in the Tour of Italy, and those in other races like the Three Days of DePanne and the Electro tour last week, Mark has shown over and over again he can beat the fastest sprinters in the World. His seven wins this year – it would be more but for races that officials took away from him or Mark himself gave away, give the Isle of Man rider a lot of satisfaction.
“I said this year that a win in the Giro would be worth four or five of my wins last year and I won two Giro stages plus races in Romandy, DePanne, Electro and other semi classics. All high quality wins so I am real happy with how things have gone this year.”
Mark is known as a sprinter, a fearless competitor who can handle the argy bargy world of sprinting at the end of a four or five hour road race at 40 miles an hour plus. Asked if the prologue win in Romandy however was unexpected, he replied “No, not at all. I have won prologues before (Tour of Britain last year for example) and so went into it with the attitude of winning it. I wasn’t sure when I heard it was up one way and then down but when I heard it was flat I thought I can’t lose. I was setting up my bikes and even the mechanics were laughing at me but I knew I’d win, Brian (Holm) knew I’d win and (Alan) Peiper knew I’d win. I won.”
Mark explained that his value has gone up because of his ability to win prologues and possibly win a yellow jersey in a Tour. Theoretically I can win Tour prologues but realistically I’ll be limiting my loses to a second or two and then get the time bonuses in the next sprint stages and then win the Yellow jersey.”
“At first, I went into the Electro tour and thought perhaps I could do something on GC there even though there were some climbs in it because when I’m going good, I can get over climbs like those but then Tony (Martin) won the Yellow jersey on the first stage and I rode for him for two days before he unfortunately he crashed out. After that I was using it for training and maybe to also get a result.”
Asked if there was pressure on him to get results there pre-Tour de France, he said “no, I put the pressure on myself. Sure, they put pressure on me at the Giro and the Tour but no, not the Electro. Early on, they wanted me to wait to wait for the last two days but I wanted to ride for Tony. There are not that many opportunities I get to pay the team back for their help during the year. If it’s a flat day, normally my job is to wait for the sprint, and if its mountains, I’m limited to what I can do – I can help for the first K and then I’m out the back!”
“To be a winner you have to be an alpha male but in a team environment, you can’t afford to be an alpha male, you have to be a leader and the difference between the two is that an alpha male gets himself to the top and does his best to stay there where as a leader gets himself to the top and appreciates those supporting him which is how he’s got there. And that’s what I do and I appreciate every bit of work my teammates do, every bit the staff like soigneurs, mechanics, directors and so on do. I know its not just me.”
Mark then explained his thanking other riders in rival teams for their help or cooperation during a race is not a tactical move to make friends but something that comes naturally to him. “I genuinely mean it when I thank them. I may have a bad name in some parts but I am a nice guy, open and honest.”
The Tour de France
Asked if his wins in the bigger races like the Giro this year helped him learn more about his craft in big bunch gallops, Mark replied “not so much learning but confidence. The Giro is like every other race but harder – the Tour is like no other race. The Tour sprints are a completely different style and all I know is that my wins show that I am the fastest there.”
“Knowing I’m the fastest means I’m not going to shy away from putting myself in the best position.”
Mark has already looked at the course with this team and earmarked four stages in the first 10 days where he has an opportunity for victory. “I can’t win the first stage because the final climb is too hard and that will suit some one like Ricco or Oscar Freire.”
Winning a Tour de France stage he says “that would be the biggest thing that could ever happen to me without a doubt and would really top the year off. It would not only confirm what I have already done and that is to show I am the fastest but also raise me up a level into being one of the Great sprinters at the very top level. To do that you have to win Tour stages.”
Going back to 2007 and the Tour de France when he had lots of bad luck which blighted his Tour de France debut, Mark explained “one thing I learned from last year is that race wise, you need a team around you and at least one or two people with you in the sprint. I won’t make the same mistake last year and let the attention I got from the media affect me. I wasn’t ready for it then but this year I am ready for it.”
“I have a great set of young and experienced guys behind me and that helps a great deal. They are aren’t in there thinking about the money, and not just doing it because it’s a job but working with a passion because they want to win whether its them or some one else in the team. We’re all so proud of who we are and that’s what is great about our team. It doesn’t matter who or where – we just want to win.”
There has been talk in the media about him only doing so many days of the Tour but Mark was not making any predications about how long. His race at the Olympics he is hoping to be selected for, the Madison, is on the 19th of August. He says that should he not finish the Tour, he may still stay on the road and do the Tour of Denmark at the end of July.
Asked if having finished a very mountainous Tour of Italy gives him the confidence to finish a race like the Tour de France, he replies “It gives me confidence but I am still tired from the Tour of Italy. Initially I had planned to do only a few weeks of the Giro and then finish the Tour but I have finished the Giro so I’ll see how it goes. It wouldn’t be fair on the organisers of the Tour to go into it not wanting to finish but at the same time, I’m not going to put myself into a box.”
“I feel I have a long and successful career ahead of me and I don’t want to jeopardise that just to finish the Tour de France this year. There is time for that in the future.”
Track Versus Road
With the huge success he has had on the road, I asked Mark does the track still hold enough of a challenge for him? “It’s a bike race, another podium I can stand on, another finish line I can sprint for. It doesn’t matter what race it is, I’ve wanted to win races all my life – as long as I am racing whether it is road, track, time trial etc, I’m happy. What matters is I want to cross that line first.”
Mark now has a house on the Isle of Man where he is from, a house he says his fiancé Melissa has done a brilliant job of decorating it and that it’s great to go back there and spend time there. The home there is valuable to get away from life on the road. “When I have a big training block, then Italy is the best place for me but when I don’t need to train like when I have a few days between races, then its best to go back to the Isle of Man”.
Proud to be British
Finally, with his dinner time rapidly approaching, we finish by talking about this weekend’s National Championships. He knows it won’t be an easy race and that he will be marked closely and that if it wasn’t him the riders were following about, it would be some one else who has shown themselves to be a winner.
“Here, a lot of riders feel that if they stick to a successful rider they’ll get a result as well. That isn’t what its about. If there weren’t any professionals from Europe here, it would the top tier domestic riders they would follow.” That he says he won’t allow to frustrate him even though it’s a title he really wants.
Mark will go into the race with High Road teammate Roger Hammond, a key rider in his professional life for many years having done the Tour of Britain and two seasons together in the same trade team (T-Mobile/High Road). He says they’ll be prepared for a long hard race in North Yorkshire with a soigneur, mechanic and manager for the race who he says will be Keith Lambert, a former top professional.
Asked how cool it would be to take that champion’s jersey to Europe, he replied “I’d love that more than anything to go into the Tour de France with the champions jersey on! That would be massive for me. I’m not over optimistic however of getting it but I want to ride my national championships and if I can win it, I will do my best to do so.”
He knows that the race here will be very different to Europe where he can call upon a big team of riders to control a race for him, and other teams with similar ambitions to him (a bunch sprint) to also help out control the race for the same reasons. In Britain that will not be the case and he knows it will be hard in a different way to the European races.
“They can be just as hard but in a different way. The average speed may be less but there is a lot of stop start racing which can take a lot of energy out of you. Racing between 20k and 40k an hour stop start can take more out of you than bombing along at 55 to 60k an hour. So it can be hard and with it being over 200k, I can tolerate that a lot more than many of the others who will be riding.”
The big question will be how well Mark, and the other riders not in big teams can stay in the race and not let it get away from them. The British Championship can some times develop into a them (British based riders) versus Them (foreign based riders) but Mark is well aware that any break that develops with him in it, all eyes will be on him.
Mark though has the added advantage that he has a rider who has twice won the British title on his side and is well used to the title race tactics, Roger Hammond. His rivals may well make the mistake of watching Cav and forgetting what an awesome rider Roger is and that may see the title going to him. Whatever the result, you can be sure British Cycling will be with the race the whole way and will bring you back unrivalled picture coverage of the race as it unfolds.
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