Boy Racer

by Mark Cavendish

  When I make comments like I did that day, I can hardly complain about the way I'm sometimes portrayed in Great Britain, on forums and in the press. There have been other times in the past two years, however, when I've felt aggrieved about my treatment in the UK – and haven't always found it easy to rise above the provocation. The Ghent Six-Day track meet at the end of 2007, when I partnered Brad Wiggins, was one such occasion. It came at the end of a brilliant but exhausting first pro season for me, and, more to the point, a two-week holiday with Melissa in Thailand, dodging monsoons. I'd warned the organisers months earlier that I wouldn't be fit, that they shouldn't expect miracles and they said they wouldn't; if only certain members of the British press had also heeded the same message. Brad and I gave one journalist unprecedented, behind-the-scenes access that week – even inviting him into the 'cabin' where we changed and prepared for races – and were disgusted to return to the UK and read a report from the same journalist rubbishing our performance and completely ignoring the fact that we'd gone to Ghent that week to fulfil an obligation to the organisers – which is all that they expected or wanted. It was typical: we'd gone to Belgium and been treated like kings, then come back to Britain and faced only scorn and criticism.

  That week in Ghent was a reminder that I couldn't and shouldn't bank on fair treatment from the media, least of all in Britain. One of the things that makes cycling unique and uniquely appealing among modern mainstream sports is its intimacy; in very few other sports can fans watch at such close proximity to the stars, and in very few other sports are those protagonists so amenable. In central Europe in particular, cycling's popular, some say working-class roots, have ensured that, while large corporations may pay our bills and their logos adorn our jerseys, they haven't yet and never will corrupt the sport's soul. I may be biased, but, as far as I can see, cycling has avoided the kind of glamorisation/sterilisation which has taken a lot of the passion from football and Formula One. The passion, the intimacy, the intensity – it all means a better deal for the fans and journalists already drawn to the sport; unfortunately, that passion, that intensity and that intimacy are so ingrained in the fabric of the sport that they're sometimes taken for granted.

  If they'd pissed me off in Ghent, the English media angered me again early in 2008 at the Tour of California. That race was one of the most important of the season for our team, with our administrative base in California and our Californian team boss Bob Stapleton hunting for a new sponsor. The race was also set to be a huge story in the cycling community: arguably the biggest and certainly most outrageous personality to grace professional cycling in the past twenty years, the forty-one-year-old Italian sprinter Mario Cipollini, was making a shock comeback three years after his last competitive outing.

  I watched professional cycling with only a passing interest in Cipollini's peak years, the mid-1990s, but I knew all about his 200 professional wins, his playboy lifestyle and repeated public utterances about how much or little pre-race shagging sessions diminished his performance on the bike. If, as he claimed, an orgasm was both ideal preparation and the only off-the-bike experience comparable to winning a sprint, it was also clear that three years out of the sport hadn't dimmed his spark or lightning speed on the bike. Even in my first pro races in 2007, I'd never allowed myself to be bullied or gently eased out of position by more established sprinters, but, in those first couple of stages, with Cipollini, I found myself wanting to politely smile, move aside and wave him through. On Stage 2 to Sacramento, unintentionally, I almost gifted him a stage win by powering away from the rider I was supposed to lead out, my teammate Gerald Ciolek, and failing to realise that Gerald had purposely let me go; I looked around to see a huge expanse of daylight, but by then it was too late and I was too spent to regain momentum. Tom Boonen powered past me in the dying metres, Cipollini was third and I could only hold on for fourth.

  Cipollini and I found ourselves side by side again three days later. This time the race was a time-trial around the town of Solvang, and the context much more relaxed; neither of us was a contender for this stage or the overall standings, so we could afford to take things easy. Cipollini, it seemed, was taking things rather more easily than me – so much so, that, having set off a minute after him, I caught him midway along the route. As I drew parallel, I grinned and, seeing him grin back, thought I'd have a bit of fun by unclipping one foot and pedalling with one leg. Again, as he saw me, he smiled and I smiled; in a sprint it may be different, but here, today, two of the biggest egos in the peloton could afford to take the day off together.

  We shared a giggle about the incident again at the finish line, and that would have been the end of it had a reporter not been earwigging close by. The next day, before the penultimate stage, the same journalist quizzed Cipo about the incident; having laughed with me the previous day, now Cipollini suggested my antics in the time-trial had been disrespectful. 'Cavendish's results speak for themselves, but he's still a bambino,' he said. 'If he'd turned pro in the 1980s, the sheriffs of the group would have ruined him already.'

  I didn't blame Cipollini for the apparent U-turn. He hadn't minded sharing a 'private joke' – as long as 'private' was what it remained. You could say this was petty pride – that everyone understood I hadn't really been strong enough to pass him with one leg, that I hadn't really been taking the piss, that he shouldn't take himself so seriously – but I knew the journalist had put words into his mouth. More than any lesson that I needed to learn, the whole episode simply highlighted yet again that, while it was okay to be spiky, spontaneous, candid and even controversial – and that all of those qualities might even help to raise my profile – I was still at the mercy of the media and how they choose to represent me.

  OVER the last three days at that 2008 Tour of California, if you include the storm-in-the-teacup over Cipollini, I ended up being punished for three mistakes ... only one of which I'd actually committed. On that penultimate stage finishing in Santa Clarita, I thought I'd brought the team its first win of the race, only for the Brazilian rider Luciano Pagliarini and his team to claim that I'd been illegally assisted by a team car after a crash on the first of three finishing circuits; crudely put, they said I'd held on to the car. The complaint was upheld. In reality, all I'd done was benefit from the unwritten, universally accepted rule which states that, if a rider loses contact because of a crash or puncture, he can 'draft' behind his own or other team cars as he makes his way back to the peloton. Three months later, I was half amused, half appalled to see the directeur sportif from the Saunier Duval team who had officially reported my 'crime' in California overtaking me on the hardest climb in the Giro d'Italia, the Passo Giau, with one of his riders attached like a side-car to the wing-mirror.

  My only real gaffe in California came in Solvang, neatly sandwiched between the time-trial and my disqualification in Santa Clarita. Again the media were involved. This time, though, the only person I had to blame was myself. The journalist in question, this one from Procycling magazine, had heard me speak in less-than-enthusiastic terms about Andre Greipel's sprinting the previous autumn, and now asked me what I made of Greipel's four stage wins in the recent Tour Down Under in Australia. The question may have been laced with mischief, but there was no need for me to rise to the bait. I did so by completely belittling Greipel and his achievements by belittling the riders that he'd beaten in Australia. 'When Andre was winning the sprints,' I said, 'you have to remember that Graeme Brown was second and Matt Hayman was third ... you know what I mean?'

  He knew exactly what I meant, so did the readers, so did Brown and Hayman, and so did Greipel.

  The funny thing about Greipel and me is that, off the bike, we always got on fine. At training camps – pretty much the only time of the year when riders would linger after dinner for a beer and a chat – I would socialise with Andre almost as much as with anyone else. If anything, at our camp in Majorca in January 2008, our rapport had improved because we now hardly ever raced together. After we'd started th
e 2007 season as the two sprint prongs of what was essentially T-Mobile's 'B' team, I'd rattled off six wins before the 2007 Tour and six between then and the end of the season. The issue of our incompatibility suddenly became irrelevant: as my status changed, so had my race programme, and Greipel and I now frequently found ourselves competing in the same jersey, at the same time, on different sides of the continent or sometimes the world.

  The 2008 Giro d'Italia, or Tour of Italy, was to be a big test for several reasons. For one, I still hadn't won a stage in a three-week, 'major tour'. Until that happened, I could win as many stages of as many smaller races and beat whomever I liked, but my credentials as a top sprinter would still be open to debate. The same applied to my ability to survive mountains which came not in two, well-spread instalments like at the Tour, but scattered all through even the 'easier' stages at the Giro. The other challenge was going to be Greipel, who had also hoped the Giro would mark a definitive breakthrough, but now found himself grappling with the idea that his main purpose in Italy would be boosting the stock of another sprinter. Three weeks before the start of the race in Sicily, the team's directeurs sportifs had said that he could take his place on the start line in Palermo on one condition: he would have to lay his personal ambitions to one side and support me. Greipel had given his word.

  The race was due to start with a team time-trial of 28.5 kilometres around Palermo. A team time-trial is always a delicate exercise – basically a longer version of a team-pursuit, with more men, and on the road rather than the track. The principle and technique are much the same in both disciplines: get your team of riders from one point to another, as quickly as possible, in a rotating formation whereby, at any one time, only one rider is 'exposed' to the wind, and all of his teammates shelter on each other's wheels. I'd grown up riding and watching team pursuits with the British Federation – even if I didn't particularly enjoy them. In fact, I'd ridden and seen so many of the bloody things that I could easily have written a small coaching manual on the topic.

  Unlike some of the other teams, and particularly Garmin, we'd done next to no practice drills. I hoped we could compensate with a bit of savoir faire and common sense, so was at pains to press home one key point in our pre-race meeting. Forget all doing equal turns, I told my eight teammates – the weaker riders could swing on to the front and stay there for only a few seconds if they wanted, as long as they maintained the pace. I'd seen it so many times before – a rider's pride clouding their judgement, them feeling embarrassed to take shorter pulls than their teammates, the pace dropping and the team's performance suffering as a consequence. 'No fucking h-e-r-o-i-cs!' I said, pronouncing every letter for added emphasis. 'If you do shorter pulls, or even if you do nothing, no one will think any less of you. Just, no heroics ...' As I repeated the mantra, my eyes scanned those of all of my teammates; I knew immediately who wouldn't pay a blind bit of notice to what I'd just said. Lo and behold, the next afternoon, just as I suspected, Greipel was one of three or four whose ego-aggrandising efforts broke both my golden rule and the team's momentum.

  Stage 2 was uneventful, mainly because I was never going to figure on a steep, uphill run-in. Stage 3 looked sure to end in the first bunch sprint of the Giro, and, if you didn't already know it, with a bit of background info, you might have guessed if you'd seen Greipel remonstrating with our directeur sportif Valerio Piva outside our team bus at the start in Catania. Even from my vantage point inside the bus, it was obvious that Greipel was complaining, and it was obvious what he was complaining about. 'He's not happy cos he has to lead me out,' I said, nudging Brad Wiggins and pointing to the confab still rumbling on outside. Later that day it was me who was grumbling when, out of position, with Greipel nowhere to be seen, I could only manage ninth place in the bunch gallop.

  Now day four arrived. Despite my mistakes on the previous day I'd felt good – and, with my form still building in a crescendo, I expected to feel even better today. The only potential hiccup was a steady, eight-kilometre climb 20 kilometres from the finish. With this in mind, in the briefing that morning I told my teammates that I needed their total, unqualified commitment. 'Look, I'm really up for today, but I really need every one of you round me,' I said. 'I need to start that climb at the front, and I need everyone around me. I will get dropped on that climb, but I won't be dropped so much that I won't be able to get back to the bunch. If I fuck up I won't be able to live with myself ... but I won't fuck up.'

  I was as good as my word, and so were they – Greipel included. We were like an armoured tank, chugging up the climb then dropping down the other side, on to the back of the bunch then to the front. The German rider Tony Martin took me to around twelfth position with around 700 metres to go, at which point I screamed the order to hit the gas. Tony dropped me off at 400 metres, right on my rival sprinter Daniele Bennati's wheel and I was too quick for the Italian in the sprint.

  It was arguably the biggest win of my career up to that point. It was also my first in major tours, and the last time Andre Greipel or anyone else would challenge my position as the team's number-one sprinter. Or so I thought. A few days later, on the morning of Stage 12, what should have been a straightforward briefing was interrupted by Greipel declaring that, today, he wanted to be our sprinter.

  Valerio came up with the perfect solution: Andre could be my sweeper, in other words he could take my back wheel in the sprint. That way, he could stop opponents launching themselves out of my slipstream, but also use that slipstream to follow and perhaps even beat me, if he had the speed to do so. This suited Andre, and I was secure enough in my own ability for it to suit me. In the event it didn't really matter – I lost out to Bennati in a photo-finish and Andre trailed in way down the field.

  The next morning, Valerio was explicit: 'Andre, you've had your chance and not taken it, so now you're riding for Cav.'

  The result? Andre did an excellent job and I won my second stage, thus becoming the first Briton ever to achieve that feat in the Giro.

  By the time we reached Stage 17 I ought to have been back in the Isle of Man, savouring my achievements. The plan before the Giro had been that I'd pull out after twelve days, before the Dolomites. As the race went on, however, the more mountains we climbed, the more I suffered, the more I wanted to suffer, and the further I wanted to ride; every night, after the stage, Valerio would come into my room and ask whether I was ready to go home, and every night I'd tell him, 'Just one more day.' 'Taking one day at a time' may have been a cliché but it was also the secret: don't look at the number of stages already completed, don't look at the number of stages to come, just open the roadbook, calmly digest the task at hand, and worry about how much it hurt later. This approach had got me through to the final week of the race and, by now, it seemed like a shame not to continue all the way to the finish in Milan.

  Stage 17 was to finish in Locarno, in Switzerland. It was also to herald the beginning of the end of my power-struggle with Andre Greipel – not that any such eventuality seemed even remotely likely at the time. Any kind of positive outcome at all had seemed pretty unlikely when were struggling to haul back the Russian rider Mikhail Ignatiev in the closing kilometres. By now, though, the errors of the first week were a fading memory and our confidence was surging almost as powerfully as the train we formed on the front of the bunch. We duly caught Ignatiev just inside the five-kilometre mark; the stage, this stage, was now set for my third sprint exhibition of the Giro.

  At the two-kilometre banner we occupied the first six or seven positions in the peloton – an embarrassment of riches. With 800 metres to go, I actually thought we might have committed too late, as Tony Martin was on the front and we still had Greipel to come before my coup de grace. At 700 metres to go, I screamed at Andre to jump, because Tony was visibly slowing. At 600 I screamed again. And again at 500, 400, 300 until, finally, finally, on the last corner with 250 metres to go, he kicked with me in his wheel. I was sure that we were moving too slowly, that Erik Zabel or Daniele Bennati wou
ld dive-bomb out of that final bend, but I also knew that overtaking Andre in the last 100 metres would be akin to poaching his goal under the crossbar; as it turned out, to my surprise, with 50 metres to go there was still no one except Andre in my field of vision and I knew then that the win was safe. The photograph of Andre crossing the line with arms held high, and me just behind in the same pose, in second place, was the stuff a team sponsor's dreams are made of.

  Our embrace amid the post-stage commotion was, if anything, even frostier than the one we'd shared at Scheldeprijs a year earlier. If Andre mumbled a 'thanks' I didn't hear it. The next person I saw was Max Sciandri. This was ironic – in the spring of 2006, Max and I had been riding up a climb just a few hundred kilometres south of here, airing our conflicting views about whether I'd ever make the grade as a pro, and now here I was winning two stages at the Giro and 'gifting' a third to a teammate. Max and I had patched up our differences and become close friends in the meantime, but I could tell from his expression that he was at least mildly surprised, maybe completely mystified by what I'd just done. 'It's a big thing to give away, a stage in the Giro,' he said, sounding a little like a parent debating the best uses of a kid's pocket money. 'It's the kind of thing you might do to reward someone who's been working for you for ten years, but, you know ...'