Cycling: Cavendish has mountains to climb

 

Alasdair Fotheringham
Friday 18 May 2012 22:09 BST
Comments
Mark Cavendish sprints clear in Cervere to claim the 10th Giro stage win of his career
Mark Cavendish sprints clear in Cervere to claim the 10th Giro stage win of his career (Reuters)

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

When the world champion Mark Cavendish delivered a knockout bunch sprint to claim his 10th Giro d'Italia stage of his career and 33rd Grand Tour win yesterday it was very much business as usual – however, the Manxman then created a far greater surprise by announcing he would not be making a widely expected exit.

Cavendish quit the Giro in 2009 after stage 13 and again after stage 12 in 2011, on both occasions so he could avoid the toughest mountain stages and rest up before the Tour de France.

But when asked by Italian television if he would be staying in this Giro into the third week, Cavendish confirmed he would remain, perhaps even as far as the finish at Milan on 27 May.

One possible reason for Cavendish's decision to continue is that he is leading the points competition: if he does make it to Milan on top of that classification, he will have taken the points jersey in all three major Tours.

There is also the question of the Olympic road race, which features repeated assaults of a short but tough mid-race ascent at Box Hill in Surrey: Cavendish has been working on improving his climbing for the last three years, and racing through the Alps and Dolomites in the third week of the Giro could well form part of that process.

If the Sky rider tore up the script after the stage, the victory in itself was textbook Cavendish, with a three-man lead-out from Sky into the final, flat, straight kilometre at Cervere in Piedmont and Britons Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas forming a key part of the process.

The Briton was all but blocked in the finale on the left-hand side with about 150 metres to go. But showing his usual technical ability and strength, he first managed to brake sharply enough to avoid a crash (which would have been his third in this year's accident-torn Giro) and then as Australian rival Matt Goss went right, Cavendish powered away to claim his third victory of this year's Giro.

"It wasn't perfect, but Goss opened a gap so I could get through and go for it," Cavendish said, before discussing his lack of a definitively designated team-mate as a key wingman – the "leadout" man – to guide him in the final metres – which would perhaps have made a difference in those tricky last 150m. "At the moment I've had a different leadout man in each race I've been in, but I've got the best team-mates in the world. The most you can ask from a team-mate is commitment, and these guys are 100 per cent committed."

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in