Mark Cavendish Goes for Green on Tour

It was the London taxi driver’s worst nightmare, after cutting up a road cyclist and then discovering that he had Tour de France star Mark Cavendish sitting in the back.

“I asked him why he’d just done that and after he told me the cyclist hadn’t slowed down for him I asked if he was mocking me. The cabbie replied: “Why, do you know Lance Armstrong or something?” I told him I did, as it happened. He didn’t know who I was, but he got an earful from me about the way he treated the cyclist.”

That was last week and the chances are that London cabbie and a good many more members of the British public will know exactly who Cavendish is pretty soon as he tries to go one better than last year’s incredible achievement of winning four stages of the world’s greatest cycling race.

“This year my main aim has to be the green jersey,” says the 24-year-old from the Isle of Man, referring to the coveted jersey awarded to the best points scorer from the sprints during the Tour that starts on July 4th. “I’d like to win as many stages as possible, and definitely make it to Paris for the first time in my third tour, but if I can take the green jersey as well then I would have achieved everything I possibly could. I wouldn’t say it’s a probability, but I’m the fastest man on the Tour, so I’ve got to have a chance.”

That is typical Cavendish, a young man who is not afraid to say what he believes, even if some have labelled him arrogant as a result. If he were to win the green jersey – the first Tour de France jersey won in Paris by a British rider since Scotland’s Robert Millar took away the King of the Mountains polka dot in 1984 – it would be, so he says, as good as it can get.

“I wouldn’t say I’m necessarily the best sprinter, which is what you need to be tactically to win the green jersey, but I know I am the fastest, and I have every confidence that my Team Columbia-High Road teammates can put me in the positions to win as many of the sprints as possible. I won four stages last year, which surprised everyone, but this time people will be looking out for me.

“I know that some think I’m arrogant, but I’m only stating what I know I can do. Ask me what I can’t do and I’ll tell you I can never win the Tour de France, or the Giro d’Italia. Physiologically it’s impossible for me. In fact, even if I reach my peak, with the best equipment and the best team, I’d do well to finish in the top half of the race. I am a sprinter, and that’s what I’m going to concentrate on.”

In 2007 Cavendish lasted just eight stages before pulling out after crashing twice. “It was always only intended to be used for experience,” he explains. In 2008 he became headline news by winning four sprint stages, an unprecedented number of stages wins for a British cyclist in the Tour, before retiring to prepare for the Beijing Olympics. “I’d had a good year and expected to nick a stage, but not four,” he admits.

This time, riding for the most successful team in last year’s road racing, he expects to sprint down the Champs Elysees on the final day with a similar number of stages to his name, and maybe even that green jersey. “I’m a year older, and I’m a year stronger, both physically and mentally. It will be a test of strength and mind and I believe I can overcome everything thrown at me.”

Ironically, his work on the track has helped, after he appeared in the Madison event at the world championships in April in Warsaw, Poland. Ironic, because he vowed never to appear on the track again after failing to win a medal with an exhausted Bradley Wiggins as his partner at the Beijing Olympics.

“When I mouthed off about never doing it again I didn’t realise how well the physical attributes compliment what I do on the road,” the former double world madison champion explains. “The leg speed on the track enables me to be a better sprinter on the road, and the manoeuvring on the track helps me with my positioning in the road sprints. I only thought about the result, not the additional benefits.”

But this does not mean we will be seeing much of Cavendish on the track in the future, even though he could win gold for the Isle of Man at next year’s Commonwealth Games, and feature at the 2012 London Olympics.

“The World Road Race Championships clash with the Commonwealths,” he says. “If I’m still the best at the Madison by 2012 I’ll happily compete at the Olympics, but I won’t prepare for it as all my goals are aimed towards the road, and I’m expecting someone else between now and then to become better at it than me.”

He does not appear too bothered by the prospect, either. To most athletes, even cyclists, all roads lead to the London Olympics. But to Cavendish, winner already this year of the coveted Milan-San Remo, and a stage in both the the Giro d’Italia and last week’s Tour of Switzerland, all roads lead to Europe, and the chance to become the most outstanding British rider in the Tour de France since the tragic Tommy Simpson forty years’ ago.