Tag: Mark Cavendish
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Mark Cavendish elicits a strop from Marcel Kittel
The thing about headwinds is, they slow you down. If Marcel Kittel had been one of the four men who had ridden near enough 200km into one as part of the break, he’d have been acutely aware of this. As it was, he only popped himself into the wind for the final few hundred metres…
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Mark Cavendish has started beating Marcel Kittel (he’s more used to beating everyone else)
Before this race, Mark Cavendish had never actually beaten Marcel Kittel when the two have gone head-to-head in a sprint. That stat is old and irrelevant. He’s now beaten him three times in a week in the biggest race of all. Not bad for someone who’s habitually a slow starter. Where once Cavendish had a…
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Mark Cavendish helps create a normal sandwich
I like to think I know how years are named. Each year you just add one, don’t you? It doesn’t seem like that in cycling. My specific doubts centre on 2014 and 2015, which seem to have been parachuted in from some other history or future. In 2014, Mark Cavendish failed to win a stage…
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Apparently Mark Cavendish can beat Marcel Kittel
It seems increasingly unfashionable to make a case for something using facts. I don’t quite know what it says that it took a Briton from outside the UK to remind everyone how persuasive such things can be. The Isle of Man’s status is not something to get into here. All that matters to a cycling…
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Green jersey contenders in 2016
I’ve been putting off writing this points competition preview for a few days now and presumed there was some reason for this – nothing conscious, just some mystic message from the cosmos saying: “No, don’t bother yet. Play Civilization or go to the pub or something.” Turns out the cosmos was right. Everyone else is…
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British Olympic track cycling preview in the form of a World Championships review
They just held the UCI Track World Championships. Some Britons did well. Some didn’t. Here’s a look at how the nation fared in a handful of the Olympic events to serve as some kind of Rio preview. Laura Trott Not strictly speaking an event. More of a person. However, Trott is quite important. Not only…
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Kittel v Cavendish – head-to-head record
Almost as if he wanted me to expand on my half-baked ramble from earlier in the week, Marcel Kittel again beat Mark Cavendish in a sprint finish at the Tour of Dubai. The win also means he won the race as a whole, which tells you pretty much all you need to know about how…
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Mark Cavendish’s aerodynamic sprinting position
Mark Cavendish’s aerodynamic position always makes me think of a child doing an impression of a cyclist sprinting. I don’t know why. I think it just looks a bit try-hard. It seems more silly when he loses. You think: “Why were you being all aero? You didn’t even win.” But it is of course a…
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How many wins before a rider’s not considered second-best?
Greipel wins! Take that pedals! At one point Andre Greipel was the second-best sprinter at HTC-Columbia after Mark Cavendish. Then, for a long time, he was the second-best sprinter in the world after Mark Cavendish. More recently, he’s slipped a notch and has only been the second-best German sprinter after Marcel Kittel. But suddenly, in…
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A different kind of desert spring
I’m not entirely sure how one goes about peeling one’s eyes. I guess the eyelid is the thing that needs peeling, in which case the phrase “don’t unnecessarily close your eyes” seems more apt. I’ve been avoiding unnecessary closure of my eyes during the early season races in a bid to spot signs of spring.…