At noon in Seregno, like water falling from the sky, a rain of emails reached the media displaced to the Giro d’Italia. The reason? A Press conference called by the Astana Qazaqstan team with Mark Cavendish. General surprise, especially when all the conferences with the media are being organized by the organization of the race in a virtual way. The British would have to say something, despite being little friend of this type of act and of dealing with the press. The siren songs of withdrawal began to be heard…
And so it was when a few minutes after 1:30 p.m. on this Monday, May 22, at the Hotel Touring in the town of Coccaglio, it became official: Cavendish announced his retirement from professional cycling. An emotional moment for the man from the Isle of Man, who was honored yesterday, cake included, at the start of the 15th stage of the Giro for his 38th birthday. Another cycling myth that has said goodbye in recent years, like other illustrious names such as those of Alejandro Valverde, Vincenzo Nibali and Philippe Gilbert.
So things, cavs will hang up the bicycle at the end of what will be his 20th and final season as a professional racer, path that began in 2005 in the modest German Sparkasse. A course later he got his first professional victory, an appointment with the top of a podium that he has only missed in 2019, 2020 and, for now, 2023. He will still have two chances of success in a Spin, where last year he got his last victory in a big one from an impressive background: 3 in La Vuelta, 16 in the Pink Corsa and 34 in the Tour de France. The best times of him, in the htc columbia (where he swept André Greipel as a pitcher) and the Quick-Step, structures in which he accumulated a whopping 137 victories (85% of his record).
In the Big Boucle shares the record with Eddy Merckx, whom he will try to overcome next July at the hands of an Astana who bet on him on the horn. With the schedule already underway, the paths of Cavendish and the Kazakh team were destined to cross. The Briton, given his last chance to return to Tour in a World Tour structure; those of Vinokourov, given the need to add victories to save a project that, having started the present three-year period of promotion and relegation, is leaking everywhere. Regardless of how this union ends, it is indisputable that one of the best sprinters of all time is leaving, with 161 victories (third of all time and the best active) and a historic record with his 53 victories in grand tours, he world championship, the Milan-San Remo and the two green jerseys of the Tour.
