The Sir Mark Cavendish appreciation thread

[Winnersaint]

Cav has announced his retirement at the end of the season. There cant be many British sports people who are arguably the GOAT within their sport. 53 grand tour wins and a rainbow jersey. A real sportsman who is never slow appreciate and articulate the value of role of his teammates in his victories.

My favourite Cav moment was of stage 18 in 2012 to Brive-La-Gaillarde. A break up the road with Luis Leon Sanchez, Nico Roche and Adam Hansen amongst others in it. With the peloton chasing hard Wiggins does a huge turn for Cav and puts him within striking range while Roche and Sanchez head towards the line. Edvald Boasson leads Cav out into the final few hundred metres still with plenty to do. The speed at which Cav went past the pair out front to win sticks in the memory as possibly the fastest thing I've ever seen on a bike. I thought at the time that Sanchez was so shocked he was going to fall off his bike.

[Weston Super Saint]

Hopefully there will be a new favourite moment at the 2023 TdF when he takes sole possession of the record....

[badgerx16]

Watching G lead him out for the sprint in Rome was fun.

[Winnersaint]

Renshaw on Astana team advising Cav, so every chance. Rarely moved to tears but might struggle if he breaks the record.

Edited 30 June, 2023 by Winnersaint

[The Cat]

Very excited for the start of the greatest sporting event of the year tomorrow.

Hopefully Cav will do it, the last stage of the Giro gives me hope he can grab the historic stage win he needs but it will be tough as there's a lot of excellent sprinters in the race and it's going to be unbelievably hectic in the sprints.

Feel fortunate to have seen him win a sprint live back in his early days when the Tour of Britain came to Southampton and he blasted past everyone by Hoglands Park to take the stage. 

 

[badgerx16]

Well, that's it 😞

[Picard]

His team has offered him the chance to ride in the tdf next year.

[Weston Super Saint]

Need the title changing to the "Sir Mark Cavendish appreciation thread"...

[badgerx16]

Struggling badly with illness already.

[Weston Super Saint]

Survived!

Today won't be so bad and tomorrow could have been a stage he was targetting.  Tuesday will be horrendous!

[badgerx16]

39 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Survived!

Today won't be so bad and tomorrow could have been a stage he was targetting.  Tuesday will be horrendous!

Win tomorrow and then withdraw?

[Weston Super Saint]

7 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Win tomorrow and then withdraw?

If he can win, I'll guess that's the plan. If not, more suffering until the next flat stage! No showpiece in Paris this year either so not a lot of point him staying around once he's bagged the win.

[badgerx16]

There you go !!!

[rallyboy]

Fantastic - what a guy.

[Winnersaint]

Wow! That was like watching the Cav of 14/15 years ago.  Just typing that shows how great his achievement is. 

[Jimmy_D]

Admittedly I’m not a huge fan of watching road cycling, but that was a special sporting moment.

Can’t imagine how he must be feeling now compared to a year ago!