Cavendish: World Champion
Mark Cavendish finished it off with gold at the Cycling World Road Race Championships in Denmark, but he owed it all to a superb effort by his teammates.
“That’s a sign of the level this team has come to,” Bradley Wiggins said in a pre-race interview. “We believe in him and are willing to give 100 per cent for him. Financially there’s nothing in it for any of us.”
David Millar said: “The bottom line is, we have to get Cav to the finish and shut the race down. These opportunities don’t come along very often. We have to seize it.”
Cavendish duly rocketed across the line in a bunch sprint, ahead of Australia's Matt Goss and German Andre Greipel.
"We had eight of the best guys in the world. It was incredible, we took it on from start to finish," said Cavendish, I can't believe it. We knew three years ago when this course was announced – we put a plan together to put these best guys together. It's been three years in the making and you just saw they rode incredibly. I'm just so proud. The biggest goal next year (is the Olympics) and I hope we can make it a world and Olympic double."
The eight-man GB team showed amazing patience after a seven-man break formed on the opening lap which featured France's Anthony Roux, Maxim Iglinksy (Kazakhstan), Pablo Lastras (Spain), Christian Poos (Luxembourg), Tanai Kangert (Estonia), Oleg Chuzda (Ukraine) and Robert Kiserlovski (Croatia). They built up a lead of almost eight minutes before Britain, with Vuelta a Espana runner-up Chris Froome did amazing turns at the head of affairs to reduce the deficit. More and more riders attacked in an effort to bridge the gap but all to no avail. The German team helped out at the front for a time but it was the GB team’s commitment to the plan that won Cavendish the coveted Rainbow jersey.
The tactics were clear: a reluctance to get riders into the moves being made off the front of the peloton, in favour of an ambition to control proceedings throughout.
There were few other teams that wanted to get involved with the pace setting and team GB found themselves policing the peloton – hauling it forward and keeping it together – for almost the entire race.
Try to imagine riding a bike this hard for almost six hours knowing that personally you couldn’t win. It says a lot for Cavendish’s talent and esteem among his fellow professionals that his team-mates were prepared to sacrifice themselves so selflessly, Bradley Wiggins buried himself for a superb stint at the front for the whole of the last lap, and pulled the peloton to within a bunch of seconds of the break.
The GB team finally hauled in the remaining escapees and everyone started manouvering for the bunch sprint. The Italians looked menacing as did the Australians who took over at the front and looked to have blocked the GB team, forcing them further back down the line. Ian Stannard and Geraint Thomas were tasked with getting Cav to the front, but at the vital moment he lost their wheels. It was then that the true talents of the Manxman came good and he edged his way out down the right to unleash his awesome sprint and become the first British World Road Race Champion since Tom Simpson in 1965.
By Mike Kerrigan
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