Mark Cavendish (born 21 May 1985) is a Manx racing cyclist who rides for team dimension data. Originally a track cyclist in the madison, points race, and scratch race, he has competed on the road since 2006.
He is a double Madison World Champion and Commonwealth Games gold medallist on the track. As a road cyclist, he has risen to fame as a sprinter. He got eleven wins in his first professional season, equalling the record held by Alessandro Petacchi. In the 2008 Tour de France he won four stages, a then unprecedented achievement for a British cyclist (he surpassed the feat, winning six stages in 2009 and a further 5 in 2010) and he has been described as the fastest sprinter in the world. He continued his wins in 2009 by taking the Spring classic, Milan – San Remo. Cavendish started racing informally at 12, as a mountain-bike rider.
Cavendish was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Douglas in 2008, and collected the award on 14 April 2011. He lives on the Isle of Man and has a training base in Quarrata, Tuscany, Italy.
Early life
Cavendish was born in Douglas, Isle of Man, the son of David Cavendish also from the Isle of Man, and Adele from Yorkshire. He began riding BMX at a young age, racing at the National Sports Centre in Douglas. It was at that time that Cavendish met David Millar at a race on the Isle of Man. Cavendish said he was inspired by Millar.
Career
Amateur career
Cavendish worked in a bank for two years after leaving school. He concentrated on earning enough money to support himself as a full-time cyclist later on, as he attempted to turn professional.
Mark Cavendish began his career with the British Track Cycling team. He won gold in the madison at the Los Angeles World Track Championships with Rob Hayles. They had not raced together before. They finished one lap ahead of the field to claim the gold medal, ahead of the Dutch and Belgian teams, giving Britain its fourth gold at the championships. It was Cavendish's first world champion's jersey. Cavendish also won the 2005 European championship points race. He began road racing in 2005, riding the Tour of Berlin and Tour of Britain as a trialist with Team Sparkasse.
Cavendish began 2006 with the Continental team, Team Sparkasse, a feeder squad for T-Mobile Team. In June, he won two stages and the points and sprint competitions in the Tour of Berlin. He rode for the Isle of Man on the track at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, riding the scratch race. He lapped the field with three others: Rob Hayles; Ashley Hutchinson of Australia; and James McCallum of Scotland. He then beat these in the sprint to win gold for the Isle of Man. The race time was 23m 5s, an average 51.9 kilometres per hour (32.2 mph).
His success at the Tour of Berlin led to a post as a stagiare with T-Mobile from August until the end of the season. His best result for T-Mobile in 2006 was in the Tour of Britain, where he came second three times and won the points classification. It brought a full professional contract for 2007 and 2008.
Professional career
2007
Cavendish began 2007 "laboriously", said the daily sports paper, L'Équipe. It quoted one of Cavendish's team-mates, Roger Hammond: "To be honest, he started the season so catastrophically that the staff were wondering what they could enter Mark for so that he could finish the race.". Cavendish's breakthrough came at the Grote Scheldeprijs race in Belgium, which he won overall after failing to even finish any of his previous races. He went on to win stages at the Four Days of Dunkirk and the Tour of Catalonia Volta a Catalunya, the third oldest cycling stage race in the world, and that brought selection for the 2007 Tour de France, starting in London. He crashed in stages 1 and 2. and abandoned on stage 8 as the race reached the Alps, having taken two top-ten placings but unhappy not to have had a top-five placing.
Then the pattern changed. "Everything fell into place," L'Équipe said. His debut season continued, moving on to 10 stage wins, one behind Alessandro Petacchi's record 11 for a début season. Cavendish took his 11th win in early October, the Circuit Franco-Belge, to equal Petacchi's record. Among the wins were three in UCI ProTour events, the two in the Volta a Catalunya and one in the Eneco Tour of Benelux.
2008
In 2008, Cavendish returned to the track, winning the Madison World Championships in Manchester with Bradley Wiggins, as Great Britain topped the medal table.