Inside the Tour, with John Wilcockson – Mark Cavendish, the Manx Flyer
Until Mark Cavendish came on the pro scene just over a year ago, the most successful British Tour sprinter was Barry Hoban, who won eight stages between 1967 and 1975. Hoban was not a natural sprinter, but he could sustain a long finishing effort and he won stages with smart positioning. He rarely had any support from his French team, Mercier, which was devoted to protecting its team leader Raymond Poulidor. The only other British Tour rider to win field sprints was Michael Wright, who took three stages between 1965 and 1973.
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By John Wilcockson
Photo: Graham Watson
Until Mark Cavendish came on the pro scene just over a year ago, the most successful British Tour sprinter was Barry Hoban, who won eight stages between 1967 and 1975. Hoban was not a natural sprinter, but he could sustain a long finishing effort and he won stages with smart positioning. He rarely had any support from his French team, Mercier, which was devoted to protecting its team leader Raymond Poulidor. The only other British Tour rider to win field sprints was Michael Wright, who took three stages between 1965 and 1973. Wright was born in England, but grew up in Belgium and couldn’t even speak English.
Cavendish has no trouble with the English language, which he speaks with what Brits call a scouse accent, a little like the Beatles. He comes from Laxey on the Isle of Man, which is connected to the mainland via ferryboats that sail across the Irish Sea into the port of Liverpool, home of the Beatles. Like the original Fab Four, Cavendish has let his curly black hair grow a little long — maybe like Sampson and his beard, the sprinter doesn’t want a haircut while he’s on his stage-winning roll — which on Friday increased to four victories in 10 days. There’s a chance that in Digne-les-Bains on Saturday evening that total could be five — which is the most stages a field sprinter has won in any single Tour since World War II.
French legend André Darrigade won five sprint stages in 1958, while Belgian Freddy Maertens did it twice in 1976 and 1981. In recent Tour history, Italian sprinters Alessandro Petacchi (in 2003) and Mario Cipollini (in 1999) both won four stages — all in the first week of the race. The current sprinters with most Tour career stage wins are Erik Zabel and Robbie McEwen, both with a total of 12 victories. It looks like the 22-year-old Cavendish, if he continues in the manner he has shown at this Tour, will easily top that number in the next few years, and he could even challenge the record of 21 sprint stages won by Darrigade.
Virtually all of the most successful Tour sprinters needed a fast lead-out train to launch their sprints. That was certainly the case for Cipollini and Petacchi; and with the absent Tom Boonen, who has six stage wins in the four Tours he has started. Cavendish, however, plays the sprints by the seat of his pants. The Columbia rider praises his teammates after each win for getting him near the front by the final kilometer — but from there he likes to take over and prepare for his devastating final efforts in his own way.
That was the case Friday in Nîmes, where he described using his favorite method, “jumping from train to train” until he was ready to challenge Silence-Lotto’s McEwen and the promising French sprinter Roman Feillu of Agritubel. As he did at Narbonne on Thursday, Cavendish came from the sheltered side of the pack, sprinting out of the saddle, ripping the pedals like a track sprinter and almost destroying the handlebars as he pulls up with his muscular forearms, to develop incredible speed from his powerful thigh and calf muscles and generate a phenomenally high pedal cadence. He was so far ahead with 20 meters still to go that he could sit up and spread his arms in victory.
The other top Tour sprinters McEwen, Oscar Freire (Rabobank), Thor Hushovd (Crédit Agricole) and Zabel (Milram) were so far behind they could only look at Cavendish in astonishment. Perhaps the only sprinters that can be compared with the Manx Flyer, at least in the past 40 years, are the so-called Tashkent Terror, Djamolidin Abdujaparov from Uzbekistan, who won eight stages; the immaculate Belgian Patrick Sercu, who was a much smoother sprinter than Cavendish; and McEwen when he was younger.
But Cavendish, at least in this second season of his pro career, is even faster. Perhaps it will take the return next year of Boonen or Petacchi, with their immensely fast lead-out trains, to keep the young Brit in check. But I wouldn’t bet on it.