Why didn cavendish win

Sorry, there was a problem. More from Sport. Cricket Why player pressure is likely to see the fifth Ashes Test moved from Perth. Cavendish hailed world champion Julian Alaphilippe, from whom he inherits the green jersey, after the Frenchman gave everything to get Cavendish into position. I knew I could do it, I just need someone to believe in me and that was Patrick Lefevere, and my wife at home, those are the people I wanted to believe.

Cavendish was out of contract in December but was taken 'home' to Deceuninck Quick-Step, who call themselves 'the Wolfpack', by maverick Belgian team boss Lefevere, a larger-than-life character Cavendish has always trusted and believed in. Lefevere sent Cavendish to the level two Tour of Turkey in April and when he won four stages there, the foundation stone for a return to the top had been laid. Alaphilippe won stage one to take the yellow jersey before losing it to Mathieu van der Poel on Sunday, but on Wednesday's time-trial the French rider, on paper at least, has a good chance of winning it back.

Dutch rookie Van der Poel, who shed his own tears in memory of his cycling grandfather on Sunday, said he felt he would lose the overall lead on the stage five time-trial. The first signs that Pogacar — leader of the UAE Emirates team — would effectively sweep the board came in the stage five time trial to Laval , which the defending champion emphatically won. Three days later, on the first Alpine stage to Le Grand-Bornand, he delivered a killer blow, with a lone attack that emphasised his superiority.

Pogacar not only won his second Tour by more than five minutes, but he also took three stages, the King of the Mountains classification and the best young rider classification.

It was a bit like Chris Froome used to do. In he won five stages and the points classification at the Tour, along with its prestigious green jersey, plus the road race world championship in Copenhagen.

One of the most prestigious races of the year for sprinters is the final stage of the Tour de France. He won by 98 feet 30 meters in , an almost inconceivable margin for this stage.

It became one of the most famous Tour de France images of the s. With no clear sentimental favorite to root for among the GC contenders, Cavendish filled the vacuum. He was telegenic, aggressive, and narrowly on the right side of the line between cocky and arrogant. Cavendish became a massive celebrity, particularly in the U. But sprinters tend to have fairly short careers.

The year-old still won an Olympic silver medal in Rio that year, and came within a couple of meters of a second world title that fall. Cavendish crashed out of the Tour on Stage 4 after a controversial collision with Sagan.

In the spring of , Cavendish was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus, which in severe cases can cause chronic fatigue symptoms—a dire emergency for someone who does cardio for a living. Cavendish says it took him two years to recover fully from his illness.

Things only got worse from there, as Cavendish struggled to stay right-side up for an entire race and looked like a shadow of himself when he did.

By the end of , he was two and a half years removed from his last race win and a bit player on a middling Bahrain-McLaren squad for which he failed to register a single top A decade earlier, Cavendish was so dominant he made the sport upsettingly boring.