What’s subsequent for Sir Mark Cavendish? It’s a query biking lovers had been asking themselves for years. The primary whispers got here in October 2020, when on a torrid time out at Gent-Wevelgem, the teary-eyed Manxman stated he had simply completed “perhaps the last race of my career”. Fanatics gasped. What’s going to he do now?
Hindsight, after all, tells us it wasn’t his closing race. There will be the comeback Excursion de France in 2021, when he gained 4 levels and drew degree with Eddy Merckx’s all-time degree win document. Then got here the nationwide identify he gained from the breakaway in 2022, the Giro d’Italia degree win in Rome in 2023, and the unlucky crash out of the Excursion later that summer time. He was once scheduled to retire on the finish of the season. Was once that the closing we’d see of Cavendish? What would come subsequent?
Once more, hindsight tells us there can be extra. Every other 12 months with Astana-Qazaqstan, every other crack on the Excursion, and every other degree win. In any case, the outright document was once his. Fanatics, content material with their hero’s achievements, may just watch him hold his wheels up with delight.
That second got here this November, on the Singapore Criterium, the place Cavendish sealed off his profession with a ceremonial victory. “I’m really looking forward to what the rest of my career holds, just not on the bike,” he stated afterwards. And so, as soon as once more, the query is rippling round biking: what’s subsequent, Mark?
The solution, lovers will likely be happy to listen to, seems to stay throughout the recreation. Requested about his retirement via The Mum or dad this month, Cavendish stated: “Obviously I’ve still got a lot of life left, and I still have to provide for my family, and so I think that’s going to be in cycling team management. I know the sport and I know how to build a team and that’s where I’m heading. It’s exciting.”
It’s an concept the 39-year-old first published in October. Then chatting with Males’s Well being he defined he’d identified for “the past few years” what he sought after to after his street profession.
“I’ve set the wheels in motion,” he stated, pun most likely unintentional. “I want to stay in management in the sport, I still love it. I brought a lot of people to this team [Astana-Qazaqstan] over the past two years, and I know what it takes to be successful. I’ve been building up to the moment I’m not racing.”
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It’s true that Cavendish has slowly been developing an empire inside of Astana-Qazaqstan. The primary trace of that was once the signing of Vasilis Anastopoulos because the group’s head of efficiency in October 2023. The Greek trainer had prior to now labored with Cavendish at Fast-Step, the place he was once instrumental in guiding the sprinter to his comeback Excursion in 2021.
Extra lately, two of Cavendish’s shut pals have joined the group’s group of workers, each on his advice; former Hour File holder Alex Dowsett will likely be a efficiency engineer from 2025, whilst Cavendish’s fellow Manxman Pete Kennaugh will tackle his first WorldTour gig as a sports activities director.
So does this imply Cavendish will lend a hand set up the group in 2025? Smartly, almost definitely no longer.
“We have a good relationship with Mark, he was very important to us,” Vinokourov stated. “But sometimes it’s not easy to find an exact role for someone in the team and that was the case with Mark.
“Mark didn’t want to just be an ambassador for the team, Mark wanted to be part of the decision-making structure, but that wasn’t possible yet.”
But…? “We still have a good relationship and we’ll see what happens later. Maybe in the future,” the group boss added.
What this issues to is a possible task inside of XDS Astana, however no longer subsequent season. It’s an answer that most likely fits Cavendish, too. An unique member of the British Biking academy in 2004, the Manxman joined his first street group in 2005, and raced for 19 relentless years. It is almost definitely time for a destroy.
So devoted was once Cavendish’s way to biking, that his circle of relatives lifestyles has been fleeting lately. His trainer, Anastopoulos, as soon as joked that he had spent extra time with the sprinter than his personal spouse had. Now, Cavendish instructed The Mum or dad, he’s having a look ahead to sharing the “beautiful intensity” of circle of relatives lifestyles together with his spouse.
“Peta was with me in Singapore, and we were in Japan the week before. Those two weeks are the longest we’ve ever spent together, just us two, and I want to do more of that with her,” he stated
His social calendar is beginning to replenish for the 12 months, too. In January, he’ll go back and forth to Australia to sign up for within the twenty fifth anniversary celebrations of the Santos Excursion Down Underneath. He has additionally dedicated to operating the Paris Marathon together with his brother in April. “I will always ride my bike, but I want to run now,” he instructed Males’s Well being.
So, in case you are hoping to look the Manx missile in a group automotive in 2025, do not cling your breath. He is were given a lifestyles out of doors of biking to revel in first, one he now leads as a Knight Commander. Relaxation confident – if Vinokourov’s hints are anything else to move via – Cavendish may well be again within the thick of it in a not-so-distant long run.
