Teams & Riders Mark Cavendish Discussion Thread

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Sep 14, 2009
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Today wasn’t some freak thing. Cavendish has still got the straight speed to compete for stages. All his ups and downs have somewhat dampened just how dominant he has always been in sprints when he is at his best. He is older and his reflexes aren’t what they used to be, but he is still extremely fast. What separates him from aging sprinters in the past is that Cavendish has never lost his nerve. Most guys can still ride fast as they age, it’s the deterioration of their other skills and the fact that as they get older, the risks of a sprint finish become more clear.

Cavendish has never lost his nerve in sprints. The crashes that could’ve mentally finished lesser riders didn’t dull his ability to block it out.
Yes. Not to mention, the speed and physical attributes to win at the end of a stage are not the same as the absolute sprint capacity in either a sprint event or a criterium. It's nerves, but also physical resilience, skill, reading the race.

Cav has never been the straight up 'fastest' per se. But he is the fastest at the end of a lot of races!
 
Nov 16, 2013
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For the day that's in it, I thought some people might appreciate it, and I believe it causes almost zero disruption to anyone that doesn't particularly need it. Is there a difficulty with it being stickied?

No, I just thought that it was unprecedented for a rider thread to be stickied so I thought it might have been a mistake.
 
Sep 5, 2016
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Nobody knows what tomorrow holds but was not too windy today, stage will be flat and probably thicker than today. Cavendish will get another shot..Didn't see weather forecast. Besides Cav, rewatched near miss by Pogacar, he was just a millimeter from being crashed out..Tomorrow will be dangerous for sure
 
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Jul 10, 2012
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Love this slideshow of Cav posterizing several generations of sprinters.

Hushovd, Farrar, Petacchi, Boonen, Greipel, Sagan, Phillipsen, WVA


Fun fact, he's only won a single stage at the TDF one time (2015). His median number of victories if he wins at least once (which he has done 10 times now) is 4.
 
Jul 17, 2021
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He rode the chain off that bike ;)

 
Oct 30, 2023
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Fun fact, he's only won a single stage at the TDF one time (2015). His median number of victories if he wins at least once (which he has done 10 times now) is 4.
They say my spelling is terrible. But my math ain’t too shabby. I ran the numbers with your data and came up with at least 41 wins.

I think Cav must have broke this record years ago!
 
Aug 13, 2011
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They say my spelling is terrible. But my math ain’t too shabby. I ran the numbers with your data and came up with at least 41 wins.

I think Cav must have broke this record years ago!
4+6+5+5+3+2+1+4+4+1=35/10=3.5
They then rounded up to get the mean of 4.
 
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