Mark Renshaw is usually launching the sprints for Mark Cavendish, the undisputed number one sprinter in the HTC Highroad team. This past week, Renshaw was allowed to take glory, winning the Tour of Qatar overall. He took control of the race after winning stage four. Cavendish was quite happy with his leadout man taking the win.
Cavendish thinks it is good for Renshaw's self-confidence. "He needs that," Cavendish tells Het Nieuwsblad in an interview in Qatar. Cavendish himself started the year a bit like twelve months ago. Rather than winning, he was having a tough time. Last year, severe tooth problems hampered the early season. This time, he heavily crashed in stage two of the first race of the season, the Tour Down Under in January. He also came down in the Tour of Qatar.
It is safe to say that the Manx Man will bounce back strongly, like he did last year. He won five stages in the 2010 Tour de France, after facing a lot of criticism up until then. After his first stage win, Cavendish was very emotional, showing a sensitive side not revealed until then. "Do you think that it doesn't affect me? I am only 25 you know," he said.
Cavendish is puzzled about the people who have an opinion over him and his personality. "Especially people who don't know anything about me and only judge me from television or things they read in the papers. Listen to what I say rather than what I do," he says. "Then you will get to know the other person, the real Cavendish."
Cavendish says he is very picky now about the people he has contact with. One of those in the inner circle is his new girlfriend, Peta Todd. The model is quite an active person, having ridden 640 kilometers in five days and climbing Kilimanjaro for a good cause. This year, she plans to run a marathon. "An incredible woman," Cavendish says about her. "She manages to make me feel really special. I didn't know a woman can do that to a man. I missed that last year."
Both are traveling a lot, which makes a relationship harder. Cavendish is riding the Tour of Oman next and is focusing on Milano-Sanremo for the early part of the season. He has won the race in 2009, where he passed Heinrich Haussler with an amazingly explosive sprint. But Cavendish always finds something to improve. "My best was never good enough," is his motto.
When he won the Scheldeprijs in 2008 against Tom Boonen, Cavendish was lamenting the fact that he was not concentrated in the final. He had a bad position, dodging his way through and only passed an already celebrating Boonen on the line. "Sometimes I win, but I am not really that happy because I have the feeling that there were mistakes. By me or by others." He says that people don't experience that side of him, when he lies in bed. "I see that film of the sprint time after time in my mind."
He dissects the videos of his races to see where he can improve. "I am not easy-going in that regard," he says. "You can't be, if you are looking for perfection. I am the biggest critic of myself." He also expects the same from his teammates. "The full one hundred percent," he explains.
Cavendish is not worried about the fact that with the season barely started, he has not won yet. He says that he takes it as a compliment that people expect him to win all the time, but it is also a drag on him. "If Tyler Farrar wins a race then it is enormous. In my case it is when I don't win. When my competitors lose their position in a bunch sprint, nobody cares. If it happens to me they say that he won't win a stage this year! Until that day, when I took the first of five," he adds with a grin on his face, referring to the last Tour de France.
Cavendish spent a training-vacation combination with teammate Bernhard Eisel in Los Angeles, enjoying California's 'winter' for six weeks. He has also already scouted out the Worlds parcours in Copenhagen, Denmark. "The main reason to go there was a ride with cancer patients," he is quick to clarify. His goals for the season are very precise. Milano-Sanremo, the Tour and the Worlds.
Cavendish also loves racing in Belgium, where the spectators are so crazy about cycling. But he is realistic about races like the Tour of Flanders. "I really enjoy my sport and the races. But whether I could win, for example, the Ronde van Vlaanderen is another thing."