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Mark Cavendish at Sunday's Paris-Tours one-day classic race. (James Startt)
After dating for months, the Manx sprinter and Britain’s de facto national team finally make an honest couple.
By Joe Lindsey
[Update: an earlier version of this post listed Canyon Bicycles as a potential tie between Erik Zabel and the Omega Pharma team; Omega will ride Specialized for 2012.]
Took long enough.
The Sky pro cycling team formally announced today what was the worst-kept secret in pro cycling: that sprinter Mark Cavendish will don the black-blue-and-white Sky outfit for 2012.
The news was followed by another release saying Bernhard Eisel, one of Cavendish’s most essential leadout men, would join Sky as well. Terms of both deals were not disclosed.
The signing – much expected but also much delayed – brings Cavendish full circle to the British Cycling program that coached him to his first major international success: a gold medal at the 2005 World Track Championships. (Sky is essentially a trade team extension of British Cycling.)
It also fully reunites him with his personal coach, Rod Ellingworth, who works for Sky and British Cycling, and puts him under both the trade and national team direction of Dave Brailsford, who directs both Sky and the British national team.
In recent weeks, there had been questions about whether Cavendish would really go to Sky, which arose primarily because no signing had been announced. Those questions reached a peak when Cavendish was linked to the Omega Pharma-Quick-Step team and the usually circumspect Brailsford was quoted as saying the situation surrounding Cav’s contract negotiations with Sky was “complicated.”
In the end, what most people suspected or even expected came to pass. Sky is, after all, the most natural fit for Cavendish on many levels and, from a sporting perspective, it’s hard to argue any team better positions him to continue as the most dominant sprinter in the sport.
A ride on Sky sets Cavendish up perfectly for a likely run at the 2012 Olympic road race, in London, on a course that many feel was essentially created for him. He won a test event on the course in August, and then the Sky-dominated British team was sterling in executing a strategy for Cavendish’s World Road Race Championships in September.
The official press release contained a bumper crop of effusive quotes from Sky’s staff and riders, with team leaders like Bradley Wiggins and Edvald Boassen Hagen (both former trade teammates at Highroad) notably offering their congratulations.
Whatever we make of the reasons for the long delay in signing, those issues appear to be settled. With Eisel added to Sky’s already formidable roster of support riders, Cavendish looks well equipped to continue his domination of bunch finishes.
But before we award the Olympic gold medal and green jersey from the Tour de France outright, I would note that Cavendish will likely face his most serious competition in 2012.
GreenEdge is also well stocked with sprinters, while both Omega and the Lotto-Ridley team have an eye on bunch finishes; Omega won the services of former HTC director Brian Holm, who often called sprint finishes for that team.
Finally, the man who is almost universally considered the best leadout in cycling, Mark Renshaw, will ride at Rabobank for his own sprints and alongside Theo Bos and Michael Matthews. That’s quite a trio.
One final question regarding Cavendish’s past and future success remains unresolved: Where will Erik Zabel end up? The ex-pro was integral to HTC’s success as a sprint team and has skills and insights that are not easily replaced. His son Rick will ride for Rabobank Continental in 2012, and he has ties to Omega Pharma in Brian Holm.
But the elder Zabel, often press-shy, has not publicly said where – or whether – he’ll work in pro cycling next season. Cavendish has clearly had success with the Sky formation in national-team kit, without Zabel. But if he no longer has access to sprinting’s master strategist, and faces several strong challengers, he may find his toughest season yet.
The biggest challenge that Sky and Cavendish face is not unlike that which Sky faced in its first season: how to live up to the expectations of success, whether what they’ve created themselves or what others do, fair or no.
If nothing else, 2012 will be a very interesting season for the sprint finishes.