Cavendish returns to winning form
Manxman’s happier head helps with victory, friends and colleagues tell Vern Pitt
Achange of mindset and more racing in the legs has been behind the almighty return to form of Mark Cavendish last week at the Tour of Turkey, according to those that know him.
The Manxman racked up four wins in eight stages against in-form sprinter Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-fenix) at the sprintheavy race last week.
The first of those wins came 1,159 days since he last tasted victory at the Dubai Tour in 2018. After that first victory Cavendish said: “Just to get back to winning after what I’ve been through in the last couple of years is truly incredible. To win again was emotional.”
There was an outpouring of goodwill towards the 36-year-old from all corners of the peloton in the wake of that first win. Among them was Alex Dowsett. Racing in Turkey as part of André Greipel’s Israel Start-up Nation lead-out train, he said: “If it couldn’t be us, I’m very happy it was Mark
Cavendish.”
Cavendish would go on to win the following two days in a way that was reminiscent of the man they called the Manx Missile in his pomp before claiming a fourth win on stage eight.
Cavendish’s good friend and Deceuninck-quick Step sports director, Brian Holm told Cycling Weekly that after the third victory he felt it was “like going back to the good old days”. He said: “When he passed Jasper Philipsen he was looking at him like riders did in the past when Cavendish was on the best form.”
When asked what had changed for the sprinter who late last year was facing the prospect of enforced retirement before Deceuninck-quick Step manager Patrick Lefevere stepped into bring him back to the Belgian powerhouse squad where he raced from 2013 to 2015, Holm said: “From my point of view it’s his head. To be a cyclist, you need a clean head to ride your bike. He’s feeling safe in the team and I know he loves the bicycle, I know he’s dreamed of coming back to the Specialized, it’s really well cut for his body.”
Holm pointed out that
“It was like going back to the good old days”
Cavendish had always been complimentary of the Belgian squad even after he left it. “It’s like a marriage, sometimes you leave your wife, and you realise, ‘Oh, that’s probably a mistake.’ It’s about forgiveness also and Patrick knew he liked the team so he took him back. He [Cavendish] was quite fast to admit that it was probably a mistake to leave the team… You have to try something else to know what’s best for you.”
Down but not out
The Dane added that when Cavendish was at the Tour of Poland last year he felt he was “digging into a hole”, but that he had always had moments, even in his best years, when he seemed down and out but would bounce back.
Ex-pro Rob Hayles, who worked closely with Cavendish earlier in his career, echoed Holm’s assessment: “The thing I’ve noticed with him, which you see with a lot of people – I had it myself at the level that I was riding – you get to a point where it gets nervous. And as a sprinter, you cannot afford to be thinking about consequences. It just looked like that what was happening with Mark was the confidence had gone.
“You could see just a little bump with 300-400m to go and almost kind of go ‘Ah’ [and sit up], whereas that wouldn’t have happened before, he would have fought.”
Cavendish himself would echo some of Hayles’s words after his second victory. He said: “My confidence is still coming back and today I had more than yesterday and knew I could fight again for the victory.”
Back to his best?
Hayles added that fans shouldn’t underestimate the time it takes for riders to regain physical strength after a major injury or illness. “The older you get the longer it takes to come back… I think the timing is probably right. In terms of he’s had those couple of years where he’s kind of been getting the miles in it, but it’s not quite been working.”
He added: “The percentage difference between being off form, coping but off form, and doing what Mark is doing now, which is winning, it’s quite small, but it really counts.”