Cavendish does the double and makes it 4 wins
July 18th, 2008 by Ricky Blayney
It has been quite the year for 23-year old Mark Cavendish. First he becomes a World Champion on the track towards the early part of 2008, then he shows up at the Giro d’Italia and wins two stages, he then proclaims himself as the fastest man in the world and backs that up with not one, not two, not even three until yesterday, but FOUR stage wins in the Worlds biggest bike race, the Tour de France. In August his bandwagon will roll in to Beijing as he looks for Olympic Gold. Should he come home with that on top of the current honors, he most certainly will be the deserving forerunner for Britain’s Sports personality of the Year 2008.
Yesterday Mark Cavendish did the unthinkable and became the first British rider to win three stages at the Tour de France in one year. Today he extended his record by winning his second race in a row and forth overall. Is there any stopping this young man.
Very few riders in the history of the sport have won four stages in the one tour, yet at just 23 Cavendish has done this already. He has said he doesn’t feel he will complete the entire Tour de France as the British team looks for him to pull out early and rest up as much as possible for the Olympics. With three big mountain stages coming up, were Cavendish tends to struggle big tim, you could certainly see him stepping off the bike, but with four wins in the bag, could the man from the Isle of Man really be thinking of making it five on the final stage into Paris next Sunday?
It is entirely possible and I certainly hope so. If he does make it over the mountains, makes the most of Monday’s rest day and gets his legs together in time for next Sunday then there is no reason why he will not win the final race of the Tour. He is far and away faster than anyone else in the field over the final 200 metres and that was shown today.
Canvendish looked boxed in with 250 to go, and it looked like one of the other top sprinters would get a turn, but with 200 to go he broke free, showed us again that incredible turn of speed he seems to posses, and burst free winning the race by about three lengths. As the wins come they appear to come easier for Cavandish no matter how much he plays them down.
It was the last opportunity for the big sprinters before Paris, and the likes of veteran fast men like Erik Zabel and Robbie McEwan will be kicking themselves that they no longer have the legs to compete with the new fastest man alive, Mark Cavendish.
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