An overall victory at the Tour de France 2012, worth Mark Cavendish’s two seasons? Part 2
Having two cyclists in the top five at the most prestigious cycling race of the season was definitely a job well done by Brailsford and company, but the hustle of an overall victory cost Cavendish his green jersey.
Mark rode brilliantly during the Tour de France 2011 and claimed the maximum number of 334 UCI points to top the final point’s classifications with five stage victories in the 2011 version of the race.
Jose Joaquim Rodriguez of Team Movistar finished second with 272 points with Philippe Gilbert, Cadel Evans and Thor Hushovd securing the next three positions with 236, 208 and 195 points in the respective order.
Cavendish was riding the Tour for no other purpose besides retaining the jersey, but he could not really succeed in his goals and blames lack of support given by the team as the main reason behind his failure.
Peter Sagan of Team Liquigas-Cannondale overcame Mark with a huge margin of 201 points as he becomes the new Point’s classification leader of the French Grand Tour with a total number of 421 UCI points.
The Slovakian succeeded during the first, third and the sixth stages of the French Grand Tour and truly deserved the top spot.
Mark also bagged three stages at the 2012 version of the race after his heroic performances at the second, eighteenth and the twentieth stages but had to settle for the fourth position after the final point’s classifications.
Andre Greipel of Team Lotto Belisol finished second with 280 UCI after bagging the fourth, the fifth and the thirteenth stages of the race.
Matthew Harley Goss of Team Orica GreenEdge could not win any stages but his top-finishes were good enough to earn him the third spot with 268 points after the Tour de France 2012 points classifications.
Cavendish is still within the contract with Team Sky for two-more years and is currently negotiating with Brailsford to free him by the end of 2012 season.
"It's like a long-distance relationship. Everything's great but you live apart and it can't really work out,” Mark told Cyclingnews earlier.
“You want to be friends and you'd rather the best thing happened so that you can stay close".
"We obviously had ambitions that can't work out. The Tour de France is the hardest sporting event in the world.
“When you realize that you can't go in with a double-pronged attack…that maybe became apparent at the Tour”.
“I was incredibly proud to be part of the British team that won the yellow jersey with a British rider [Bradley Wiggins]."
It seems like the exit of Mark is a bullet even David Brailsford cannot dodge and the rumours are, he is ready to trade his top cyclist for the British rider Andrew Fenn currently under contract with Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step as reported by Gazet earlier.
Team Sky cyclist is definitely a race winner and can prove real costly for the British team; he recently secured his first overall victory at the Ster ZLM Toer 2012 to prove his strengths at the stage racing.
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