Cav’s legendary career has had more twists and turns than a snake with an itch but whether he gets that record is really beside the point
Several years ago I started gathering occasional notes for a column that would one day commemorate the retirement of Mark Cavendish. As it stands, that column would now be approximately 20,000 words long. That’s not the only reason it will never see print. The main issue is that I’m not sure Cavendish is ever going to retire.
Even if he did, the image he’d leave behind when he went would be like the afterglow of the sun burned on your retinas when you close your eyes. He’s about as easy to ignore as a jet engine whistling away in the corner of your living room.
One of the notes I made for the column that will never be needed was that he’s been in the peloton so long that he started his career racing alongside multiple Tour green jersey winner Erik Zabel, and is now racing against Erik’s son Rick. But we’re at the point where if Cavendish can squeeze out another couple of seasons, he might still be an active rider when Rick’s retirement party rolls round as well and
Erik’s grandson arrives all fresh-faced and sprinty.
Having said all that, there is a very strong hint of one-last-job about Cavendish this year. Taking outright the Tour stage win record that he currently shares with Eddy Merckx once looked like the surest bet in sport, then the most unlikely, then one that was almost a cert, now one that’s just about possible again. A cunning investor could have paid for their retirement speculating on Cavendish futures over the last 10 years.
There will be young riders in the Tour this year who’ve only ever heard about the semi-mythical Cavendish beast. There will be team staff saying things like, “I saw it once. A voracious monster it was. It ate Robbie Mcewen whole, spat out the bones, but kept the green jersey and dragged it back to its nest.” There will be rumours. Noises in the jungle. There will be that Jurassic Park glass-of-water thing, and when the Cavendish strikes, no two witnesses will have seen quite the same thing. Sprinting is like that.
In some ways the actual record doesn’t
matter all that much. Filmmakers talk about a Macguffin – something that is central to the plot, but is in itself inconsequential, like the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Tour stage record is just like that. We’re all going to be obsessed with it till either it happens or it finally doesn’t.
But if it were to happen on, let’s say, stage three, everyone will have forgotten about it by the end of stage five. (Hey, don’t blame me, stage five has mountains in it, that’s the way it works, and I don’t make the rules.)
For a long time I’d have said that the current jointly held record was about right – there’s a feeling of justice about it, and it never felt quite right for a specialist to topple the ultimate all-rounder. But
I’ve come to change my mind. It would take a heart of stone (or possibly of Belgium) to watch someone negotiate with team after team, month after month, to keep a dream alive and not also quite want to see them succeed. It might be a last hurrah, the rest of us might not talk about it for years afterwards, but it would be well earned.
It’s not just a final job for Cavendish, it’s what might be a last echo for that sort of sprinter – the purist, built for the very flat, very fast days. There are pickings at smaller races, but Grand Tours have made their lives harder and harder, with fewer flat days, and more mountain stages much earlier in the races. Full-stage TV coverage has killed the sprint star. But I hope not for just a few months yet.
“It’s what might be a last echo for that sort of sprinter”