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Teams & Riders Mark Cavendish Discussion Thread

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The whole forum was saying he should retire at the end of last year and we all would have been wrong. The forum has given riders slack for injuries, sickness, depression, Covid calendar, or lack of racing kilometers resulting in poor performance and saying they will be back after better.

He went through Epstein-Barr 2017-2019, many crashes and injuries 2017-2018, depression, and Covid year. We gave many riders slack for performing bad in the Covid year (and that some over performed) and he was severely lacking in race kilometers before Covid started shutting everything down. His results slowly got worse from 2017 down to 2020 as he kept getting sick, crashing, injured, and lacking racing. 2020 was bad on all accounts and showed no promise compared to his 2017-2019 seasons. He lacked confidence, endurance, and stamina while performing like a worse Guardini. How much you put his terrible 2020 on lack of kilometers, depression, Covid season, and being washed up is your own prerogative. Just like how he got to his performance now is your own prerogative but we can all agree he has gotten stronger and more confident as the year went on.

2017-2019 the riders who finished ahead of him when he finished 4th or higher and a chance to win was:
2017 Kittel, Groenewegen, Ewan, Bennett, Viviani, Demare, and Greipel.
2018 Viviani, Groenewegen, Coquard, and Ewan.
2019 Jakobsen and Bennett.
The same riders people are mentioning aren't at the Tour now giving him an "easy cakewalk".

By the end of the Tour he will have the most second most racedays and KMs with still more of the season to go versus those before. We always talk each year about certain riders lacking the racing days to be competitive and how training kilometers is not equal to racing ones.
SeasonPointsRacedaysKMsWinsTop-10s
2021766457315917
20201337575300
20192763965006
201816948713419
2017222477515112


Thank heavens Cavendish treats the opinions of the inhabitants of this forum as nothing!
 
Disappointing ride in Denmark with no wins and a 2nd on the only stage he contested for the win and two 9ths in the breakaway win and TT. Groenewegen was in prime position around the corner with a little bit of a gap and even opened up some more, even with Morkov in between them Groenewegen would probably have won. Will most likely race Tour of Britain but no additional news on a program.

If he is riding next year I wonder for what team.
 
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Disappointing ride in Denmark with no wins and a 2nd on the only stage he contested for the win and two 9ths in the breakaway win and TT. Groenewegen was in prime position around the corner with a little bit of a gap and even opened up some more, even with Morkov in between them Groenewegen would probably have won. Will most likely race Tour of Britain but no additional news on a program.

If he is riding next year I wonder for what team.
Not disappointing to me, literally back from the cycling scrapheap to the very top.
After the effort all season I,m not surprised he had not be top shape in his first race back.
Groenewegen by comparison for reasons we all know has everything to prove again this season.
 
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Not disappointing to me, literally back from the cycling scrapheap to the very top.
After the effort all season I,m not surprised he had not be top shape in his first race back.
Groenewegen by comparison for reasons we all know has everything to prove again this season.
No stage wins of potential 3 is a disappointment. Unless he is riding for Quickstep again and they’re keeping it under wraps he doesn’t have a team. Any win counts especially against Groenewegen and helps his case of not only getting a team but leadership for the Tour.
 
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I suspect this is more about him trying to justify the salary he is asking for. I think he will resign with DQS, but maybe not if the two sides are just too far apart. Otherwise I bet he will end up at one of these small teams that wants a Tour de France invite that can only afford a very poor supporting cast.

I'm sure Lefevere will want Jakobsen to ride the Tour next year. In my view DQS is where Cav needs to be but he won't necessarily get all the races he wants.
 
I'm sure Lefevere will want Jakobsen to ride the Tour next year.
Yep:


bonus quote:

"Then it starts: what are we going to do with him? Many riders become performance coaches based on their experience, but training is also needed. He also wants to walk next to me, learn the trade, be a PR man. I say: You're out of luck, I signed with my main sponsors until 2027, what are you going to teach me?"

Ouch...
 
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Ouch that clickbait headline.
Both Fabio and Cav deserve to go to the Tour but only one can really go and Fabio is just as big a name in West Flanders ;)
Maybe Cav should just say thanks it was great but I want to ride the Tour, and replace Viviani at Cofidis who love throwing money at sprinters,
 
Must say PLF is so disappointing human being with his style to drag too many cyclist who's making business with his team, everybody carefully and throughout through the dirt.

Of course top athletes can be primadonnas and else but its possible to handle business side of things without all this, differently.

Maybe he's bit too old already. I'm sorta already waiting someone, not next PLF for sure.
 
Yep:


bonus quote:

"Then it starts: what are we going to do with him? Many riders become performance coaches based on their experience, but training is also needed. He also wants to walk next to me, learn the trade, be a PR man. I say: You're out of luck, I signed with my main sponsors until 2027, what are you going to teach me?"

Ouch...
Just reinforces that the “Wolf Pack” is all PR. He didn’t care about the “Wolf Pack” till Boonen retired. Honestly wouldn’t mind Cav going to a different team and beating them, same as Bennett. He showed in the Tour he still had the speed in the first two stage wins to come from behind, on his own, and win. I think he’d only be able to win in the first week though.

I wonder how the story would have been if they actually did win 5 stages. In my opinion doing Giro and Vuelta is still fine if he stays with the team. While Jakobsen should be given the green light, it is still very premature to be that arrogant. A lot could happen by July.
 
I'm starting to think Lefevere needs medication.

I mean this was funny for a while but now... he comes across as a complete b*stard. In this most recent interview he totally annihilates Cavendish, completely.

Maybe Cav is indeed greedy? But that's not the point, i.e. this goes way beyond Cavendish: it's about every single rider out there seeing DQS's boss publicly defame one of his riders (who won 4 stages in the Tour, FYI). And this comes after bashing Sam Bennett like it's a national sport.

Ironically it's actually Lefevere who sounds like he's money obsessed & acts like he's paying out of his own pocket.
 
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'Wolfpack' has as much 'Go Away' heat with me as 'marginal gains' at this point.

As above, Boonen's retirement made them hammer it home a lot more, but the first time I remember them trying to push that nonsense was seemingly based on embarrassment and overcompensation after being comedically owned by Ian Stannard.

I think they are told to bring it up after potentially embarrassing PR incidents, I.E Cav having a go at that mechanic, or Jakobsen/Senechal moment at the Vuelta.
 
I think Lefevere is just trying to get away with giving his sprinters *** contracts cause they have the best leadout train. I imagine they were negotiating a new contract around the time Cavendish suddenly won 4 stages in Turkey

I wouldn't be surprised if he offered Bennet a *** extension deal, he went somewhere else, he then was dropped from the Tour squad and he then said "okay *** you too"
 
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I'm starting to think Lefevere needs medication.

I mean this was funny for a while but now... he comes across as a complete b*stard. In this most recent interview he totally annihilates Cavendish, completely.

Maybe Cav is indeed greedy? But that's not the point, i.e. this goes way beyond Cavendish: it's about every single rider out there seeing DQS's boss publicly defame one of his riders (who won 4 stages in the Tour, FYI). And this comes after bashing Sam Bennett like it's a national sport.

Ironically it's actually Lefevere who sounds like he's money obsessed & acts like he's paying out of his own pocket.

I never thought it was funny.
 
'Wolfpack' has as much 'Go Away' heat with me as 'marginal gains' at this point.

The whole Wolfpack DQS stuff was always straight-up cringe pomposity.

I never thought it was funny.

It's a turn of phrase, i.e. which roughly translates as "I could ignore it for while... but this isn't acceptable anymore".
 

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