Cavendish Coming Of Age As Olympics And Fatherhood Beckon

For those who know Mark Cavendish the thought that the winner of this year’s coveted green jersey at the Tour de France and world road race champion can be more motivated than ever appears both impossible and scary, at least if you plan to race against the man.

Cavendish, after all, became the first British jersey winner in the Tour since 1984, and the first British road race world champion since Tommy Simpson in 1965, which is why the 26-year-old Manxman is marginal favourite to become the first cyclist in a non-Olympic year to win the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award next month since the tragic Simpson 46 years ago.

The job, it seems, has been done but Cavendish has barely started and the heady cocktail of recent global success, impending fatherhood and the forthcoming London Olympics means that the man is already pounding the Essex countryside roads, where he lives with former page 3 glamour model Peta Todd, in pursuit of still greater glory in 2012.

“I’ve never been going so well at this time of the year as I am now,” the favourite to strike gold in the Olympic men’s road race, admitted. “Before it’s been a case of the tour being in the summer so I didn’t need to try so hard now, but I’m a very different person because of this year, and the prospect of what will happen in my life next year.” 

His coach, Rod Ellingworth, told a story about the morning after Cavendish received the rainbow jersey in September for becoming world champion. “It was early the next morning and Cav woke me up by phoning to say he was already out on the roads wearing the jersey but he was cold because he refused to wear anything under or over it,” he recalled. “That’s how much that jersey and the achievement meant to him.”

Cavendish smiles when the story is related. “Standing on the Tour podium with the other green jersey winners meant so much to me after working so hard to get it and having missed out so narrowly in the previous two years,” he said. “To then win that world title with such a fantastic plan of action thought up three years’ ago when we knew the world championships would be in Copenhagen just fulfilled all my dreams. We had eight riders out there who dictated how all 200 in the race would compete. But now I have other dreams.”

The first may be to win the big BBC award, having finished 4th in 2009 and 7th last year. “I’m very excited about it because I know I’ve got a chance this time to win it which would be great for me, and even better for the sport. Chris (Hoy) had a great 2008 and deserved to win the BBC award but that was in an Olympic year. I’m very aware that if I win it will be because of my feats out on the roads this year. It would be very special.”

In April Cavendish will become a father. He already knows which sex the baby will be and has been in charge of buying baby clothes. “It’s the most exciting news I’ve had all year, and that includes what I’ve done in cycling,” he insisted. “I already have a good inkling about being a parent because Peta has a five year old son who I love to bits.

“The new baby is permanently on my mind and it’s incredible how much it’s changing me. Far from blunting my edge it is making me want to strive even deeper because everything I do will affect my child’s future. There will be no holding back.”

Nor it seems will there be in the summer where Cavendish plans to defend his green jersey cycling for his new team, Team Sky, alongside Bradley Wiggins, in the Tour de France before, six days later, attempting to win Team GB’s first gold medal of the London Olympics on the first full day of competition.

“It’s not ideal but I’m a professional cyclist whose job is to ride in the Tour de France,” he explained. “All my Olympic rivals will also be in the Tour so I’m not at a disadvantage. If I didn’t think I could win both I wouldn’t attempt it.”
Can a team work when they have one cyclist (Wiggins) aiming for a podium in the General Classification and another (Cavendish) wanting to retain his sprinting crown?

“Absolutely,” said the latter. “I think it will help because Brad crashed last year because he was too far back in the peloton where accidents tend to happen whereas with me pushing for sprint points he will find himself further up the field and out of trouble. We’ll work as a team and it will take pressure off both of us by having us both in the team.”

In 2008 Cavendish failed to medal at the Olympics in the Madison partnering Wiggins but the only aspect of that summer that annoys him – apart from it bring brought up again three years’ later – is that he left the Tour early for Beijing. “I’ll always compete in the Olympics but I’ll never quit the Tour again to do so,” he said. “I regret doing that in 2008 before Beijing.”

Four years on he will have the chance to win Team GB’s first gold of a Games that promises much for a country that aims to at least emulate its fourth place overall on the medals’ table.

“It’s a massive incentive for me,” he revealed. “Of course I’d love to win a gold medal for me, and for cycling, but to be able to do it for my country at the Olympics, and hopefully kick start a wonderful two weeks for British sport, means that the five of us in the road race team will do everything in our powers to make it happen.”

To do any of this means putting in the hard work and, after escaping from a collision with a deer last week (“I didn’t get its registration”) Cavendish will head for the mountains of Majorca next week to fire in his tank for what promises to be a big December, and a monumental 2012.

Mark Cavendish is a Wasserman Media Group client. Follow Mark on Twitter @MarkCavendish.