Cycling Profile: Mark Cavendish - Part 1
Mark Simon Cavendish was born in May 21, 1985 in Douglas. He is Manx professional road racing cyclist and his current team is HTC-Highroad. Cavendish has been describing as the one of the fastest sprinters in the world, originally a track cyclist specializing
in the points race, Madison and scratch race disciplines.
The track cyclist Cavendish took a gold medal in Madison in the world championship in 2005 and 2008 and also won the scratch race at the Commonwealth Games 2006. He equaled the record of Alessandro Petacchi after winning the eleven victories in his first
professional period. He also put his himself in Number six on the all time lists after taking a total of 20 stages of Tour de France.
Informally, Cavendish started racing at the age of 12, as a mountain-bike rider and he got his first mountain bike in his 13th birthday. At the race on Isle of Man Cavendish meet David Millar and said “I was inspired by Millar”. Before turning in professional
career, he worked in bank two years for earning enough money for his cycling career.
Cavendish started his career with British Track Cycling team in 2005. He took his first victory in UCI Track Cycling World Championships in 2005, he showed his good effort and finished one lap ahead of the field and won the gold medal and wear first world
champion’s jersey. He also secured the points race European championships 2005.
In season of 2006, Cavendish joined with Continental team and in June, won the two stages, points standing and sprint standing in Tour of Berlin. He took a part in Commonwealth Games 2006 and showed his good effort and beat the three cyclists for took a
gold medal for Isle of Man. After came second three time and took the overall points standing in Tour of Britain, he signed a two year contract (2007-2008) with the Continental team.
In 2007 season, Mark took the overall lead in Grote Scheldeprijs and also went into stages of Four Days of Dunkirk as well as Volta a Catalunya 2007. Cavendish took a part in the Tour de France and crashed in first two stages while in the eighth stage he
abandoned the stage as the race reached the Alps. He was unsatisfied with his performance because he was in top-ten cyclists instead of top five.
In 2008 season, he returned the track and won the Madison Track World Championships 2008. He secured two victories in major race Giro d’ltalia. Cavendish was the first British cyclists who won the four consecutive (5, 8, 12 and 13) stages in single Tour.
He abandoned the tour after the stage fourteen so he could concentrate on Summer Olympics 2008. Columbia managed and Cavendish was riding the Alps was risk to his hopes while he failed to took a gold medal and he was the first British track cyclists who not
win a medal. He became frustrated with his performance and revealed that he had no more plan to come back on Track cycling.
In 2009 season, he beat the Boonen for two stages of Tour of California and was also leading in the overall points standing. He was surprised after winning the UCI Track Cycling World Championships, where he took Madison and scratch race.
Continued in Part 2
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