It's a sad day for cycling
It's a sad day for cycling. It looks like the Manx miss oil, Mark Cavendish has called time on his professional career. Let's cue that intro. The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Row Man Podcast. Roadman, how's everybody? Happy Monday. Welcome back to another Roadman short form bites podcast. Yesterday was one of the classics. It was Ghent and Ghent Veligim. And I want to get into and talk to you. I'm going to briefly not diminish our downplay, the race are the result of the race but something more important came out yesterday's race and that was an emotional teary Mark Cavendish in a post race interview where he appeared to announce his retirement. So I want to dig into that but before I do I want to remind you all about patreon.com. It's patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch. If you're getting some value out of this podcast, please I would ask you to head on over to patreon. is the way we fund this podcast. It's how we keep the podcast going forward. You subscribe to your host board, you subscribe to Skye, all these big corporations, but it's small creators, it's the likes of the roadman podcast that actually really need your support because it's, if you're on the fence, it's, I would really encourage you to just step off that fence and make the contribution because each and every patreon, it puts a smile on my face, it's validation we're going in the right direction, but it's also just it's a lifeblood of the podcast every single patreon that subscribes It means it's more likely that we're gonna get podcasts out the following week We're knocking down amazing guests like a Simon Gerns last week It's or the France yellow jersey winner stage winner in every grand tour the guests like that the call of the that caliber They're not the easiest to get another amazing guest this week He's one of the stars of the black lives matter move and he's become a real figurehead head for a sport, the Legion Reuter, Corey Williams, who was in brawl at the center of a controversy involving Quinn Simmons and I'm sure we'll get into all of that. Okay, let's jump into today's substantive topic. It's Mark Havenish at the end of yesterday's race. A race, I'm just actually going to briefly gloss over who won the race. It was Mads Patterson, the former world champion won the race from Senesharth and Quickstep and Trentain from CCC. At the business end of the race it looked like Vanart was the strongest boy in my world. We gave him so much airtime during the Tour de France. He looked the strongest boy in my world. Van der Paul looked next strongest and we were all looking forward to this showdown and went against Van der Paul. The market that you wrote as often happens and Mads Pedersen saved it off. One big attack to go across that little move and he was able to finish it off very very well. One of the fastest guys in the world, like he was second on the Champs-Elysé stage behind Bennett. So he's not a man you want to let at the front of a boy grace, especially when he's had other guys like Wout taking the limelight and doing a lion's share of the work and he was able to hide in the shadows from much of the day. But it was after the race and I was, I'm going to be a little vulnerable. I actually felt choked up listening to Cavendish. It was hard to watch. Cavendish came across the line and he was asked by Belgian TV I think was Sporza and he was asked why he was so emotional and he took off at Sunglass as visibly distraught and he struggled to get the words out that this is perhaps the last race of my career and then he disappeared off and he's left us all to kind of wonder and speculate as to what's going on. His team principal DS, he was DS at Skye for him as well, Rod Ellingsworth, he came out and said we're working on it that he's hopeful the Cavendish will race next year.
Seems like a horrible situation. It's just for fans, for Cavendish,…
It seems like a horrible situation. It's just for fans, for Cavendish, even if you're not a fan of Cavendish, just a fan of the sport, you need to tip your cap and as we say in cycling, say, Chappau, Hats off to Cavendish for what has been in this essentially one of the greatest careers we've ever witnessed in the sport. 30 Tour de France stage wins, 15 Jourde Italian wins, 3 Vuelta wins, 10 Tour de California stage wins, a Milan San Remo win, a World Road race champs, a bunch of World Track champs, a Green jersey in the Tour de France and a Partridge in a Partry. Christmas jokes can't be done, but seriously, what a career, it's absolutely astonishing. And Wiggins, who I know, one if you're a wagons fan or not but wagons and have were such a dynamic duo altogether on the Madison and they picked up a number of world titles and they know it have been great mates since and wagons on the Euro sport podcast he said I think we all found that hard to watch it's not the exit from the sport for a man who's achieved what he's achieved it's not the exit we all want to see we all want to see him go out on a high no one really expected it either He never stated this was going to be his last year. It almost feels like the decision has been taken away from him It's become more of someone else's decision rather than Mark saying this is where I want to stop and if we contrast the Wiggins End of his career to Cavendish's end of his career Wiggins had a very controlled end of his career He won his Tour de France with Skye, then he moved on to setting up his own team. He went for the error record He got the error record and it seemed like he got that chance with Wiggins to do a finishing lap up to some of the big races he wanted to do like the Torah Britain and really go out on his terms book Cavendish. He seems like a guy that would race for the next 10 years if you have done. I think Wiggins alluded to that in order one of his comments in the podcast where he said, Mark knows the day is going to come when he's got to retire and he's got a great refinery to retire to and whatever lies next for him he'll cope with that. But he loves cycling and if you could race for another 10 years he would. But we all know the day comes when a cyclist can't do what we don't 10 years ago. He's realizing that. He's not deluded in any sense. Cavendish still looks to me like he can add a lot to a team and if he wants to go on, which it seems like he does want to go on, with the greatest rider potentially of all time results wise, it's very, very difficult as a fan to understand why a team isn't offering Cavendish a contract. He seems like he's going going to bring massive media attention wherever he goes. He seems like he's still eager to play a part. He was in the break yesterday in Ghent, Veligam. So he can still ride his bike. It's just, it's really difficult to understand why this is going to unfold. And Wiggins again finished off saying, it's hard because you always have a romantic vision of where you want to stop. But knowing Mark, I just want to see him not necessarily with a win, but just the celebration of his career. I don't want to see him crying at the end of the race being forced out. I understand that doesn't always work like that, but he'll go down as one of the greatest ever cyclists. And he will get credit once he's gone and he'll realise what he's achieved and the stature in this sport that he has. I think Wiggins summed it up really nicely. I would be gutted if this is the end of the Mark Cavendish journey, a journey that's like so many memorable days on the bike, so many memorable hours for me in front of the TV watching Cavendish. You know, if you're a Cavendish and Wiggens fan, that's an iconic shot and I'm coming past the arc, the tree of Wiggens in the yellow jersey leading now Cavendish for the stage when in the Tour de France, like it was epic stuff.
Cavendish got Epstein-Barr, I think in 2017 or 2018, and he struggled…
And I know Cavendish got Epstein-Barr, I think in 2017 or 2018, and he struggled to come back from that. He's pulled out a couple of six-day wins. I think he's, you know, had some track victories but they've been mowing our sort of footnotes on a pamara as it's decorated as Cavendish's. I just I hope he gets another year I hope he gets to go out on his terms because as I haven't been the biggest mar Cavendish fan of all time but I've met him a couple of times I've met him on the track over in New York last year he's a lovely down-to-air lad for what he's achieved you know maybe a testament to his upbringing very close to his parents and his heritage in in the oil of mine. I'd love to see him get one more crack at the cherry, one more. I don't necessarily think he has legs to be winning at the top level. When you look at the speed of Bennett, Kaleb Eun, these guys, I don't think Cav is there anymore. But just let him go out on his terms. Let him have that dignity. He's got to bring great value to a team. I think that's our finishing lap by Cav Nish will get great media attention. So I hope for boy fans that that isn't the last words we hear in my Cav Nish. I was teary, kind of sobbed wards beneath his glasses and a rain soaked again to Veligam. This is perhaps the last race in my career. Well, Cav, we hope it's not. Well, man, that was a slightly down and sour podcast today, but I wanted to recap again to Veligam, I wanted to get into the tactics and stuff like that, but the Cavendish news just kind of overshadowed it all. It's been a bad week in general for British cycling. We had the Giro d'Italia, which I'm actually not massively enjoying. me know in the DMs on Instagram if you're enjoying the Jiro. I was just good at the secret on Thomas because we spoke on last week's podcast about how Quran Thomas, he was a man, were wounded with a chip on his shoulder and now you fast forward a few days and Quran Thomas, he hits a bottle like a bid on the scarred from one of the Reuters or bounced out from one of the Reuters in the neutralized zone and he has an awful crash and he went down and he's after fracturing his pelvis. So that is the end of the season I say he had up on his Instagram something along the lines of fuck you 2020. It's been a bad year for Thomas. It's been a bad year for sport in general. But we're coping well and we still got a lot of boy gracing left this season. We party rubay called off but we still have Flanders next weekend to look forward to. We have the Jiro wrapping up and then we are straight into the Vuelta. So definitely action packed rest of the season ahead. Yeah, it's with a heavy heart I bring you this podcast and the newest up potentially that is the end of Mark Cavendish Thanks for listening guys, and you know what I'm gonna chat to you again tomorrow Hey everybody, it's Anthony again really quick I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put a inside the roadman community It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14-day kickstart challenge So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's the master's beginner advanced, there's meal plans shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoyglink.com or check out the link in the bio at roadmansoidling.com.