Cyclist On The Rampage

If anyone wants to see a star of British sport prove that he is the world's best sprinter, you would need to look at ITV4 this past week. We have seen a complete demolition of the world's best sprinters by Mark Cavendish, a young(ish) Manx sprinter strutting his stuff at the Tour de France. It has been a joy to watch. He has won four stages this year so far, unprecedented for a Briton, and he will completely rewrite the record books for TdF performances over the next ten years. Anyone outside cycling fails to see the significance of this. For most cyclists, winning a stage of the TdF is the pinnacle of their careers. Every rider is at their peak for this race, it is the only race which matters (in practice) in cycling. Winning the others is alright, but to claim to be any good, you must excel at the Tour. Which Cavendish has done in spades.

I have already mentioned how winning half the gold medals in your field (track cycling) lost out in Team of the Year of Sports Personality to a team that came second in a rugby competition. So even though the track team bettered their performance this year, and Cavendish has won 6 Grand Tour stages in one year, I hold out precious little hope for a cyclist to get anywhere near the top 3 sports personalities this year. Even though it is one of the only sports that we are any good at.

So I challenge those who live in Britain, especially as we have the Alps coming up in a few days time, to sit down at 7pm, tune into ITV4 (channel 28 on Freeview) and enjoy the ride. For those who don't have the patience for a whole hour of cycling, the last 15 minutes, from 7:45-8:00 has the most exciting part, the finish. It could be hill-top (good for breakaways) or flat (good for sprinters). Enjoy, as I have done these last two weeks.