Mark Cavendish
Sir Mark Simon Cavendish is a British ] retired professional cyclist. As a track cyclist he specialised in the madison, points race, and scratch race disciplines; as a road racer he was a sprinter. He is widely considered the greatest road sprinter of all time, and in 2021 was called "the greatest sprinter in the history of the Tour and of cycling" by Christian Prudhomme, director of the Tour de France.
In his first years as an elite track rider, Cavendish won gold in the madison at the 2005 and 2008 UCI Track Cycling World Championships riding for Great Britain, with Rob Hayles and Bradley Wiggins respectively, and in the scratch race at the 2006 Commonwealth Games riding for Isle of Man. After failing to win a medal at the 2008 Summer Olympics he did not compete on track again until 2015, subsequently winning his third UCI Track Cycling World Championships title with Wiggins in the madison in 2016, and an individual silver medal in the omnium at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
As a road cyclist, Cavendish turned professional in 2005 and achieved eleven wins in his first professional season. From 2008 until 2024, Cavendish won 35 Tour de France stages, putting him first on the all-time list, contributing to a third-highest total of 55 Grand Tour stage victories. He won the men's road race at the 2011 Road World Championships, becoming the second male British rider to do so after Tom Simpson. Cavendish has also won the points classification in all three of the grand tours: the 2010 Vuelta a España, the 2011 and 2021 Tour de France and the 2013 Giro d'Italia. In 2012, he became the first person to win the final Champs-Élysées stage in the Tour de France in four consecutive years.
Cavendish won seven Grand Tour stages in 2013, one in 2015 and four in 2016. This included a win on stage one of the 2016 Tour de France, claiming his first Tour de France yellow jersey. He crashed with Peter Sagan on stage four of the 2017 Tour de France, forcing him out of the race. Cavendish continued producing good results until August 2018, when he was diagnosed with Epstein–Barr virus. Before his diagnosis, Cavendish was able to compete in the 2018 Tour de France but was disqualified after not making the cut-off time on stage eleven. He returned to the Tour de France at the 2021 edition, winning four stages and his second points classification. In 2024, he claimed his 35th Tour stage win to break the overall stage victory record, previously shared with Eddy Merckx.
In the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours, Cavendish was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire "for services to British Cycling." He also won the 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award with nearly half of the votes going to him out of a field of ten nominees. In June 2024, Cavendish was awarded a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2024 Birthday Honours for "services to cycling and charity work." At the end of the year he was also awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.
Early life and amateur career
Cavendish was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, the son of David, a native of the Isle, and Adele from Yorkshire, England. He began riding BMX at an early age, racing at the National Sports Centre in Douglas.He joined his local club in Douglas at the age of nine with his determination soon becoming apparent. "He didn't like losing", said Dot Tilbury, his former coach; "He started to win and often he would lap the other riders in the field".
He said: "I was always riding a bike, getting dropped in little races." "My mum would laugh at me, and I said it was because all my mates had mountain bikes, so I asked for a mountain bike for my thirteenth birthday and got one. The very next day I went out and beat everyone." It was at that time that Cavendish met British cyclist David Millar at a race on the Isle of Man, who was an inspiration to him. Cavendish worked in a bank for two years after leaving school to earn enough money for an attempt at a professional career.
He gained a place as one of the first six riders selected for British Cycling's Olympic Academy for junior riders in 2003 having almost been rejected because of his relatively poor performance in stationary bike tests. Coaches Rod Ellingworth, John Herety and Simon Lillistone lobbied British Cycling Performance Director Peter Keen to include him because of his potential. Although he initially struggled because of a lack of fitness, he recorded his first win in senior competition in March 2004; in the Girvan Three Day race he managed to latch back onto the lead group after being dropped over a climb before winning the finishing sprint ahead of Julian Winn. Whilst at the academy, he won two gold medals at the 2003 Island Games.
Cavendish progressed well at the academy. Ellingworth said, "Cav kind of liked it" when asked about the rigid rules and "dictatorship style" of the academy. The junior riders lived on £58 a week and financial management became a part of life at the academy as well as cooking and cleaning. Cycling Weekly described the academy as "a boot camp style training regime" controlled by Ellingworth, who, after finding out they had skipped a three-hour training ride, made the juniors complete four hours hard training at night.
He won gold in the madison with Rob Hayles at the 2005 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Los Angeles. They had not raced together before as Hayles' usual partner, Geraint Thomas, had crashed during training a few weeks earlier—but finished one lap ahead of the field to claim the gold medal, followed by the Dutch and Belgian teams, Cavendish's first world title. Cavendish also won the points race at the UEC European Track Championships.
Professional career
Team Sparkasse (2005–2006)
Cavendish turned professional in 2005 with Team Sparkasse, a feeder squad for the. During this time, he rode the Tour de Berlin and the Tour of Britain. He remained with the team into 2006, winning two stages and the points and sprint competitions in June's Tour de Berlin. He rode for the Isle of Man on the track at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, riding the scratch race. He lapped the field with three others: England's Rob Hayles; Ashley Hutchinson of Australia; and James McCallum of Scotland. Hayles then led him out for the sprint to win gold for the Isle of Man.T-Mobile Team (2006–2011)
2006–2007
His success at the 2006 Tour de Berlin led to him being a stagiaire with the from August until the end of the season. His best result on the road was in the Tour of Britain where he came second twice and third once, and won the points classification. He signed an initial two-year contract to join the team full-time from the 2007 season.His breakthrough came at the 2007 Scheldeprijs race in Belgium, which he won. He went on to win stages at the Four Days of Dunkirk and the Volta a Catalunya leading to his selection for the Tour de France. He crashed on stages one and two and abandoned the race on stage eight as it reached the Alps. Although he had taken two top-ten placings he was unhappy not to have had a top-five placing. Cavendish took his eleventh win in early October at the Circuit Franco-Belge. Among the wins were three in UCI ProTour events—two in the Volta a Catalunya and one in the Eneco Tour.
2008
In 2008, Cavendish returned to the track for the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Manchester. Cavendish was brought in to partner Bradley Wiggins in the madison, as Hayles failed a routine blood test, and was subsequently banned. At around halfway through the race they appeared to be out of contention, with their closest rivals all gaining a lap. With thirty-five laps left to race, Wiggins launched an attack which helped them reach the field ten laps later. They took the lead due to the superior points they had collected in the sprints. They held on to win the gold medal, finishing with nineteen points, ahead of Germany on thirteen.On the road, Cavendish won his first stages of a Grand Tour with two victories in the Giro d'Italia and four stages in the Tour de France, the first of which was on stage five. He won also stages eight, twelve and thirteen. After stage fourteen, Cavendish abandoned the Tour to concentrate on the Olympics in Beijing. He paired with Wiggins in the madison, and as the reigning world champions, they were favourites for the gold medal but finished ninth. Cavendish felt Wiggins had not performed to the best of his ability in the madison. The rest of his season was successful, with a total of eleven further race wins, including three each at the Tour of Ireland and the Tour of Missouri where he won his only points classification of the season. At the Tour de Romandie, he won the opening time trial, beating compatriot Wiggins and emphasising his short-distance time-trial abilities.
2009
Cavendish's 2009 season began at the Tour of Qatar, where he renewed his rivalry with 's Tom Boonen. Boonen won the race and one stage, though Cavendish took two stages. He also won two stages at the Tour of California, again beating Boonen in the sprint finishes. The Tour of California also saw him win his first points of classification of the 2009 season. He was a surprise inclusion on the British squad for the 2009 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, where he competed in the scratch race and the madison, failing to pick up medals in either. He took up the European season at Tirreno–Adriatico, the Italian one-week stage race, winning one stage. He then entered his first classic race, Milan–San Remo, where he tracked down rider Heinrich Haussler in the last narrowly winning the sprint and the race—Cavendish's first victory in a race known as one of the five cycling monuments.File:Etape 3 tour de France 2009 - Peloton 4 by Mikani Edit.JPG|thumb|alt=A group of cyclists on a road | George Hincapie and Cavendish during stage three of the 2009 Tour de France.
Cavendish repeated his 2008 two-stage victory at the Three Days of De Panne, also winning the points classification. At the start of the Giro d'Italia Team Columbia–High Road won the team time trial and Cavendish was given the pink leader's jersey, becoming the first Manx rider to wear it. The first two road stages were fruitless for Cavendish, as he was beaten to the line by Alessandro Petacchi in the first stage, before he was caught behind a crash and failed to make it back for the sprint the next day. After this, Cavendish took three stage wins before abandoning it after stage thirteen, citing a need to rest in preparation for the Tour de France. He continued his preparation by racing the Tour de Suisse where he won stages three and six.
During the season, Cavendish developed a partnership with his lead out man, Mark Renshaw. Continuing his run of success, he won stages two, three, ten, eleven, nineteen and twenty-one of the Tour de France. In winning the third stage, he became the first Briton to hold the green jersey two days in a row. Cavendish's stage eleven win enabled him to reclaim the green jersey from rival Thor Hushovd of Cervélo TestTeam. It also equalled Barry Hoban's British record of eight stage wins. Winning stage nineteen, Cavendish set a new record for Tour de France stage wins by a British rider. In winning the last stage, he led home a one–two for his team, as his teammate and lead out man, Renshaw, finished second on the Champs-Élysées.
Following on from the Tour de France, Cavendish won the Sparkassen Giro Bochum and took part in the Tour of Ireland, winning stage two. In September he recorded the fiftieth win of his road racing career in a sprint finish in the opening stage of the Tour of Missouri. Before the race he confirmed he would remain with in 2010, ending speculation that he was moving to the newly created British team,. Cavendish retained the leader's jersey by sprinting to victory in stage two but finished fifth in stage three, losing the overall lead to Hushovd. A lung infection forced him to withdraw from the race before stage four. Although selected for the British team for the road race at the UCI Road World Championships, his illness prevented him from taking part.