Mark Cavendish to dominate the Elite Men road race at World Championships 2011 – Cycling News
Mark Cavendish is one of the favourites to win the UCI World Championships 2011 as he now has the support of the strong Great Britain line-up. Cavendish is getting ready to be the first rider for his country since Top Simpson who won the event in 1965. He
is in the best form and is hopeful to achieve his lifetime goal.
Cavendish is a world class sprinter and the track at Copenhagen suits his strength as he said, “I’m an old-school sprinter. I can’t climb a mountain but if I am in front with 200 metres to go then there’s nobody who can beat me.” He truly understands that
this is the ideal opportunity and he should make the most at the Championships as he mentioned, “It’s the best opportunity I’ve had.”
Mark had to abandon the Vuelta a Espana earlier this year as he could not resist the heat and also because of health issues during stage 4. He believes that withdrawing from the competition really helped him as he wanted to save his strength for the Championships
as there was also a risk of crashing at the Vuelta.
Italian coach Paolo Bennati first stated that Cavendish will not be able to make it through to the gold medal, but now he thinks otherwise. Bennati mentioned that team Britain is coming to the event with a very strong line-up and it can really make a huge
difference on Cavendish’s performance. Paolo commented about the cyclist as he said, “When I went to see the course a few times before, I said that Cavendish couldn’t do it, but that was if Britain only had three riders. Now they have eight, so things have
changed quite a bit.”
Cavendish is undoubtedly the favourite to win the event amongst Philippe Gilbert of Belgium, Thor Hushovd of Norway and Tyler Farrar of USA. The Italian coach believes that his team does not have strong chances to win this year as they do not have any genuine
sprinter in their team. Team Italia will be looking ahead at Daniele Bennati as he will be supported by Giovanni Visconti in the final sprint on Sunday.
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