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news
Mark Cavendish with OPQS team mates (pic Gian Mattia d'Alberto, LaPresse, RCS Sport)Mark Cavendish happy to ride for Chris Froome at world championships
The hilly course of this year’s world road race championship won’t suit 2011 winner Mark Cavendish, but after a succesful year with Omega Pharma QuickStep has made up for a disappointing 2012, the Manx Missile says he’s looking forward to riding for Chris Froome in Florence on Sunday.
"I think he has got a super good chance,” Cavendish said. “We're going in with that plan. If we didn't think he had a really good chance, we'd be going in with more than one plan.
"We're going with just one plan and that's to set Chris up. It's a hard course, he's in good form, he's won the Tour de France and we've got eight guys. We're in a good position to try to challenge for the win."
Speaking after winning his third stage of the Tour of Britain, Cavendish said he thinks the British race is ideal preparation for the worlds and he plans to be back.
"I'd like to, it's getting bigger," he said. "It's actually looking like quite a good race to prepare for the World Championships now.
"I did this race before I won the World Championships and just seeing the amount of people out, it's near on a certainty it's going to grow in terms of UCI ranking.
"I have a great relationship with the organisers and it's always nice to race in front of a home crowd on home roads."
Last year was disappointing for Cavendish as Team Sky’s focus on the overall win at the Tour de France meant he had less support in the sprints, and the British team’s plan to propel him to an Olympic gold medal unravelled on the roads of Surrey.
His current team, Omega Pharma-QuickStep is far more focussed on his strengths, so it’s not surprising he’s upbeat.
"I'm really happy. I've been really happy all year,” he said.
"I'm having a great time. We're successful and really have fun at the races. It's really good that, although things didn't work as we wanted early in the year, we still won so much.
"We've got the likes of Alessandro [Petacchi] in the team and Mark Renshaw again for next year. I think we can only get stronger from here."
While he thinks Froome is a strong chance for the road race, Cavendish is tipping three of his friends for the time trial, including Sir Bradley Wiggins who clinched overall victory at the Tour of Britain with a commanding ride in the time trial.
"He definitely looks in super good form," Cavendish said of Wiggins. "I'd like to see the top three - and I believe it could be the top three - three really good friends of mine, Tony Martin, Bradley Wiggins and Taylor Phinney. Not in any particular order.I'd be really happy if it could be those three on the podium."
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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3 comments
It's been mantioned that the downside to a ranking boost for the ToB would be that it would have to apply for special derogation for the U23 British Team to be able to race it, and less of of the domestic teams could take part. Funnily enough, more big names means less opportunity for the small teams, which removes one of their big sources of exposure (and hence money)
I'd be confident Cookson would have the intelligence/professionalism to provide supporting evidence when pitching ToB at a higher ranking so would be ok to do so - but I wouldn't put it past P McGabe to 'forget' the race out of spite. His lack of professionalism has been well documented on road.cc. I desperately hope he gets voted out...
And, I'm looking forward to the races this weekend - could be good for GB cycling!
"it's [the ToB] near on a certainty it's going to grow in terms of UCI ranking"
Not if Fat Pat McQuid gets back in then comes good on his previous hints at vengeance. British Cycling may just get shafted.
In fact, even if Cookson gets in, he'll need to be careful not to appear to boost its ranking out of simple nepotism.