Mark Cavendish debuts his rainbow jersey at the start of the Giro del Piemonte(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)
Columbia-HTC goes one-two with Mark Cavendish and Mark Renshaw in the final stage of the 2009 Tour de France.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Racing on the track for the first time since the world championships in 2009, Mark Cavendish (HTC-HighRoad) was the star attraction of the 34th Revolution meeting at the Manchester Velodrome on Saturday evening.
The world road race champion was given a noisy standing ovation as Cavendish, in his rainbow jersey, was introduced to the sell-out, 4,000-strong crowd. Although he lacked a little sharpness, he was in the thick of the racing all night, raising the roof every time he hit the front, especially in the final event of the evening, the scratch race, which saw him score a hugely popular win.
But his return to the boards was a one-off, he insisted: a gesture of support for the Revolution series. Mainly, of course, he is now looking forward to next year, his first with Team Sky. “It’s exciting,” he said of his move to the British squad. “It feels like I’m coming home.”
Cavendish said that his programme for 2012 will be similar to 2009, when he won Milan-San Remo and six stages of the Tour de France. A second victory in La Primavera is one ambition, though he suggested he will not be in peak form so early in the season.
“I said when I won Milan-San Remo in 2009 that that I want to win it in the world champion’s jersey,” said Cavendish. “But it’s going to be a big July with the Tour and the Olympics, so I’ll have a structured year to build and peak for the whole of July.” Of the Olympic road race, he said: “I think with the riders we’ve got we should be confident we can win a gold medal.”
As in 2009 he said he would ride the Giro d’Italia with a view to finishing it -- this year he pulled out after 12 stages.
He also said that he was pleased to finally sign for Sky, after what seemed a long, drawn out saga. "Not really," he said. "I think it was dragging on for everybody else but from past experience I have to make sure every single word in the contract is right. If something happened -- if Dave [Brailsford] gets hit by a bus in a couple of years and someone else takes over, and that's not mentioned in the contract... That's why I wanted to make sure every word in the contract was right."
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Cavendish said he would spend most of the winter in Essex and the Isle of Man, with his first training camp with his new team in Majorca in December.
Revolution 34 will be broadcast in the UK on ITV4 on Monday, 7pm.
Richard Moore is a freelance journalist and author. His first book, In Search of Robert Millar (HarperSport), won Best Biography at the 2008 British Sports Book Awards. His second book, Heroes, Villains & Velodromes (HarperSport), was long-listed for the 2008 William Hill Sports Book of the Year.
He writes on sport, specialising in cycling, and is a regular contributor to Cyclingnews, the Guardian, skyports.com, the Scotsman and Procycling magazine.
He is also a former racing cyclist who represented Scotland at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and Great Britain at the 1998 Tour de Langkawi
His next book, Slaying the Badger: LeMond, Hinault and the Greatest Ever Tour de France, will be published by Yellow Jersey in May 2011.
Another book, Sky’s the Limit: British Cycling’s Quest to Conquer the Tour de France, will also be published by HarperSport in June 2011.
