A model of this piece was first printed on 3 July 2023

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Mark Cavendish as soon as gave me the look.

It was an interview in a resort foyer in Yorkshire; he was barely late and apologised profusely, then answered questions in regards to the Tour de France with enthusiasm and element. For some cause, I believed 10 minutes of flowing dialog made me his trusted confidant, so I seemed him within the eyes and requested the query he didn’t like answering: how a lot do you need to break Eddy Merckx’s Tour stage file? He shrugged it off. However what would it not imply to you? He went quiet. Wouldn’t it crown your legacy?

The look was someplace within the Venn diagram of anger and disdain, and I half anticipated him to stroll off. He stayed, however in that temporary second, I felt the gentlest prod of his well-known spikiness. Cavendish was as soon as requested what he’d discovered from a tough day on the bike. “That journalists generally ask some silly f***ing questions,” he replied.

On the lengthy journey to his historic thirty fifth stage win, teammates and rivals have all felt Cavendish’s sharp tongue. He would slam doorways if a stage didn’t go to plan. Helmets have been thrown.

“We stood on the bus after races and screamed at one another,” his former lead-out man Mark Renshaw tells me.

Cavendish’s teammate Michael Morkov says of spending a month in one another’s pockets: “He’s undoubtedly a personality, so there are ups and downs. He has fairly a mood.”

Certainly one of Cavendish’s best rivals, Marcel Kittel, tells a narrative from the Tour in 2012. “On the beginning line at completely different phases – it occurred greater than as soon as – he was not completely satisfied along with his bike pc and he was yelling and screaming at his mechanic, subsequent to all the opposite riders. Everybody was simply wanting away [thinking] ‘you can’t do this Cav, it’s actually loopy and it’s actually disrespectful.’

“However everybody on the similar time was like, ‘he can really be a very nice man’. It’s simply… him.”

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Renshaw was Cavendish’s loyal lieutenant via a lot of his profession. On the floor there was little to unite a laidback Australian with a hyped-up Manxman; one was stoic and calculated, the opposite typically emotional and impulsive. However Cavendish wanted Renshaw’s calm head on the highway, and their temperaments complemented one another.

“I don’t assume you could possibly have two Mark Cavendishs in a staff and that may work,” Renshaw says gravely, as if genuinely disturbed by the picture he has created.

Cavendish disrupted the prevailing order right away, successful 4 phases at his first Tour de France in 2008, and he was paired with Renshaw the next 12 months. Their first lead-out was a multitude however “inside six months we had it just about down pat”.

Their first Tour collectively could be Cavendish’s most fruitful, successful six phases in all, a uncommon feat (the file in a single Tour is eight). The spotlight was undoubtedly the final day in Paris, successful on the Champs-Elysees the place Renshaw completed behind him in a one-two. It was evident that Renshaw may have been a winner in his personal proper, and “the world’s greatest lead-out man” was quickly recognised, not least by Cavendish who would eulogise about his buddy.

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Renshaw’s temporary was to steer Cavendish via the melee and current him close to the end like a king on a cushion. He was satnav, windshield and safety operation multi function. “If I needed to journey within the wind, if I needed to transfer him up in a tough part… I’d do this bodyguarding across the peloton since you’re not the preferred rider while you’re successful 5 phases within the Tour.”

Renshaw may have been jealous or aggressive however he knew that they have been completely different animals. “Stack us up in opposition to one another in coaching and I may get shut. However the place there’s a end line and a giant prize, he simply goes that 1 or 2 per cent deeper than anyone else, he goes that little bit more durable, hurts himself slightly bit extra. He’s acquired that additional drive and that crafty decision-making it’s good to be a winner.”

The staff held a deep respect for Cavendish. “When he walked into the room, everybody lifts as a result of they know he’s the very best,” says Renshaw. And what stood out past the burgeoning assortment of trophies and jerseys was a novel skill to cope with setbacks, to thrive in them.

“One of many moments that almost all shocked me was the 12 months he had an enormous crash within the Tour de Suisse. He took off pores and skin from the highest of the shoulders to his butt cheek – he took off his entire again. And he circled two weeks later for the Tour and was straight again into successful. I simply didn’t see that in lots of different riders.”

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Cavendish was a nightmare to race in opposition to. His interval of sprinting dominance was akin to Roger Federer or Tiger Woods, notably on the Tour de France. There have been 180 of the world’s most athletically excellent people on the beginning line competing for 21 phases, and for many riders simply successful one was an unqualified success. Cavendish gained 23 phases from 2008-2012, at 4.6 phases per Tour.

He was smaller and lighter than lots of his rivals, a tightly wound ball of muscle, and his largest weapon was his explosive acceleration. He had an erratic, swaying type that was uncommon and intriguing to followers and the media. By his second 12 months, he had developed an aura. He was undisputedly the quickest man on the planet. Rivals have been overwhelmed by centimetres on the end line, however they’d already misplaced to his presence at first.

“For me, Cav was the person to beat,” says Marcel Kittel, the German sprinter who gained 14 Tour phases and developed a fierce rivalry.

Cavendish’s relationship with Renshaw was essential, however following a lead-out wasn’t his solely method to win. He could possibly be out of the image, his teammates nowhere to be seen, and quietly surf wheels to the entrance to pickpocket a victory somebody thought they owned. “He behaved unpredictably,” Kittel tells The Unbiased. “He at all times made it tough to anticipate his subsequent transfer.”

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Off the bike their relationship could possibly be “uncomfortable”, Kittel says, nevertheless it was additionally stuffed with respect. “He hates to lose and after the end, you’ll be able to actually really feel that – for me it’s the identical. However in 2013 he was congratulating me after my first stage win and saying, ‘that is going to alter your life’. He was welcoming me to the highest degree of sprinters. He made that step in direction of me, not away.”

Kittel is already retired and commentating on the Tour at 36, and nowadays he and Cavendish alternate tales within the paddock. They’re united by a shared expertise that few perceive: the way it feels to journey hip to hip in a tunnel of deafening noise on the end straight of the Tour de France.

However for all that they share, Kittel factors out that they have been very completely different athletes. “He’s into the historical past of the game, he liked the previous legends and the tales. I’ve a unique perspective on biking: I loved it, and I nonetheless get pleasure from it, however I didn’t have ambitions to write down historical past.”

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The autumn of Cavendish’s profession has been stuffed with adversity: the brutal crash in Vittel that put him out of the 2017 Tour with a damaged shoulder, for which Peter Sagan was disqualified; struggles with psychological well being; repeated bouts of the Epstein-Barr virus which left him barely capable of journey.

His return to the Tour de France, with QuickStep in 2021, was solely via a stroke of fortune when the staff’s lead sprinter Sam Bennett suffered a knee damage; Cavendish was paired up with Bennett’s famend lead-out artist, the steely Danish rider Michael Morkov.

As with Renshaw, they stored lacking one another of their first race on the Tour of Belgium, so earlier than the Tour de France, Morkov and Cavendish sat down for a frank dialog.

“I had the sensation we have been not likely united, to be trustworthy, possibly not on the identical web page,” Morkov tells The Unbiased. “I stated to him, ‘look, I actually imagine which you could win a stage right here in France’. I feel coming there he didn’t actually imagine he may win, however after I stated that to him, I may actually see that mild in his eyes. He was prepared.”

Their first win collectively required some improvisation after a crash scuppered their lead-out practice close to the end. “I moved him up and dropped him off on the entrance with 500 metres nonetheless to go. Once I got here to the end line I couldn’t imagine it when he stated he really gained.”

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There was intense expectation on the dash phases at QuickStep, but in addition large strain to get Cavendish via the mountains contained in the deadlines every day to keep away from elimination, most notably the brutal double ascent of Mont Ventoux.

“Cav was actually on the restrict that day, he’s within the zone, he doesn’t reply. Then we go the monument of Tom Simpson [the British rider who died on Ventoux in 1967] and abruptly he stops, pulls off his helmet and he bows to the monument. We have been so nervous as a result of he was on the restrict to complete the stage.

“Then we now have to go the monument once more. I went to him and I stated, ‘mate, I like that you just make a salute for the monument, however please keep centered as a result of we’re 5 guys right here who labored the entire day to get you thru’. So he went to the automotive and he picked up a biking cap, and after we handed the monument once more he threw the cap and made one other ‘good day’ to Tom Simpson. I feel we made the time restrict with lower than a minute.”

After they ultimately completed, Cavendish slumped because the teammates who had shielded him from the wind bumped fists and patted backs like they’d gained one other stage.

“For me, it’s really a typical Cav story,” says Morkov. “As a result of though there may be a lot strain, he at all times searches for one thing deeper than simply successful the races.”

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Essentially, you must be clinically insane to be a sprinter. People should not have any want to journey a motorbike at 50mph, shoulder to shoulder with different maniacs whereas carrying lycra. However elite sprinters are wired in another way. Cavendish competes along with his feelings on the sting as a result of it’s on the sharp edges of biking that he has constructed his profession, the place success is measured by milliseconds.

To thrive and to win, Cavendish must be at his most intense; he must stroll right into a room and demand all the things from everybody, together with himself. And the one method to get himself there may be to really feel strain, like flames on the pores and skin.

“He’s a lot quieter in actual life,” says Renshaw. “I feel you solely see the quarter-hour of fame generally. Yeah, we didn’t simply sit round a campfire and sing. We bloody went face to face with the very best on the planet.”

In some ways, he has gone full circle. Cavendish arrived as a disruptor, an outsider – an “underdog”, as he known as himself in his ebook, “who discovered to scrap and scratch as a result of it was the one approach for me to outlive”. Now, greater than ever, he’s the underdog once more. Few imagine he’s the quickest within the peloton now, and that has added extra gasoline.

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Final 12 months, Cavendish introduced Renshaw again into his nook to seek the advice of along with his new Astana teammates on lead-out precision and, presumably, to arrange them for all the Mark Cavendish Expertise. This 12 months he reunited with Morkov, too, as if he wanted to piece collectively the best elements of his profession earlier than he may full it.

He had postpone retirement 12 months after 12 months, determined to surpass Merckx, giving all the things to get there. With every passing stage, with every completed Tour, it appeared farther from his grasp. But this time, in opposition to a stacked discipline on stage 5, Cavendish produced a dash for the ages, skipping via the chaos, hopping from wheel to wheel till abruptly he was in clear air, head down, hurting to the road.

“Are you aware what bothers me,” Cavendish stated final 12 months. “Everybody calls it Merckx’s file. It’s not Merckx’s file, it’s our file. I gained’t break his file; I’ll break our file.”

It’s his now.