Mark Cavendish

While I am still getting over the enjoyment of this year's Tour de France, there are one or two things that are worthy of more comment.
Some of the newspapers this week-end have been coming to realise just what fantastic athletes the road racing bikers are. Patrick Collins in the Mail on Sunday recalled labouring up into the Alps some years ago, in a Volvo in steaming heat with the car struggling to keep going as it got hotter and hotter and the atmosphere got thinner and thinner, in order to cover a stage of the Tour de France. When he got to site and sat and watched he saw these bike men coming up the side of the mountain with what he thought was comparative ease. I think he may have over-egged it a bit here. Mark Cavendish after the two Alpine stages where he lost points said, "Man, that was really hard." And if Cav' says that, I am prepared to believe him. This year the Tour de France followed roads through the Alps — goat tracks Andy Schleck called them — to a height of 2,700 metres — in old British money that is 8,910 feet — or an altitude of double the height of Britain's highest mountain. That is some climb and no one who is not an awesome athlete could do it.
It is interesting to read some of the reports of the amateur riders who try one of the stages each year. The organisers of the Tour de France set up, each year, a single stage event that is open to all amateurs. Anything up to 2,000 trained loonies have a go. Since there are so many, they are sent off in groups well spread out and they race against the clock. Many do not finish the course but also, many do. One writer wrote his report in one of the national newspapers last year. He was a keen amateur cyclist and he trained for this special one day for more than six months putting in lots of miles and gym workouts. He completed the course. When he got off his bike, he was on the verge of total collapse, totally exhausted. He told us that he had taken twice as long as the riders would do in the race and the idea that he would get out of bed the following morning and do it all again was pure fantasy. He held the riders in awe ever after.
David Millar, the British rider who completed this year's Tour in 76th place [out of 168 finishers] said yesterday that we do not appreciate just how good is Mark Cavendish. He is, said Millar, "the greatest sprinter in cycling history." And for such an achievement he may get a mention in a small column a few pages away from the back of a national newspaper. He is fantastic. There is no doubt about that and in the last 2 years he has matured immensely. No longer does he behave like the truculent teenager and, always, he gives enormous credit to his team of lead-out men who get him to the right place to rocket him towards the finishing line. To see him take off in a bunch sprint shows just how great he is. The best cyclists in the world are left standing. So far he has 20 stage wins to his credit and experts are predicting that he will one day exceed the 34 stage wins of Eddie Merckx - the greatest bike rider of all time. I look in the sports pages of newspapers and see acres of rubbish about footballers being transferred from here to there, about the sex lives of footballers, about the ridiculous wages of footballers, etc, etc. And this happens even during that brief respite of no football in July. But mention of a great performer like Cavendish is scant. Perhaps after his green jersey win he will get more attention. But, I suppose it will be mostly about wags!
What will happen to Cavendish and his team next year is unknown. He is out of contract and HTC Highroad have not yet committed to sponsoring the team in the future. Cavendish has indicated that he wants the team to stay together. That may not be easy if HTC cannot collect the resources to allow them to continue this sponsorship. It may be, of course, that the problem is agreeing contracts with a team of riders who have now become very valuable in world cycling.
Luckily, there are many young men [and women] who are being inspired by the likes of Mark Cavendish, Bradley Wiggins, David Millar and, on the track, Chris Hoyle, Graeme Obree, and Victoria Pendleton. bike riding in all its forms is becoming more and more popular, encouragingly, as a break from the brutal corruption seen in football.
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