The manager who oversaw Mark Cavendish’s most prolific spell of success as a sprinter believes that the Briton can come back and fight again for his 35th Tour de France stage win but argues that the Astana Qazaqstan racer should make it anything but a snap decision to do so.
“He’s got the talent and speed to do it, but he needs to think long and hard about what the implications are of sticking around for another season,” Rolf Aldag told Cyclingnews.
Now with Bora-Hansgrohe, Aldag was former head sports director at HTC-HighRoad, where Cavendish took 74 of his 162 career wins, including 20 of his 34 Tour de France stage wins. Aldag then worked again as performance director with Cavendish at Qhubeka/Dimension Data between 2015-2019, including the 2016 Tour de France where Cavendish took the yellow jersey and four stage wins.
Aldag is on the Tour this year, where Cavendish crashed out on stage 8 with a broken collarbone. That was less than 24 hours after claiming second at Bordeaux despite a late problem with his gears that could arguably have cost him the victory.
The question of whether the Briton will now postpone his retirement by a year, rather than quit at the end of the season as planned, is the subject of much speculation.
While Cavendish has as yet not discussed this publicly, even Eddy Merckx - with whom Cavendish shares the record of 34 stages - has weighed in and said the Astana Qazaqstan pro should continue. Astana team manager Alexander Vinokourov has already said they would like Cavendish to go on into 2024.
“My instinct is that he should take time, recover well, breath in and out,” Aldag said, “and then consider all the options.
“Then if he comes back, if I was him, I’d say that has to come with some conditions and some more support.
“He should be thankful to Astana for giving him that chance” - of racing in 2023 - “because you know how late his signing was. ‘I’m really grateful, guys, for you helping me out. But it’s like - if you want me to continue then there’s point 1, point 2, point 3 we have to work on and we really have to get the structures right.'”
Cavendish was fulsome in his praise of his Astana teammates during the Tour, saying they had ‘nailed it’ on one stage.
But by their own admission, the squad does not have any kind of tradition in supporting sprinters, and the one signing they made after bringing Cavendish on board was Dutch lead-out man Cees Bol.
“That’s what I would do. Can he come back? Will he come back at all?” Aldag, himself a former pro asked rhetorically. “I’ve changed my mind about this over the last couple of decades, because when I was riding, for example, I could never understand why an absolute idol of mine like Sean Kelly kept riding when even I could beat him. Shouldn’t he have stopped?
“Now I think completely differently. I think if people are not riding for others, they are riding for themselves, let them ride as long as they want.
“If this is really your passion and what you like doing, then I’d really not care what the public thinks, or the media or cycling fans think.
“If your attitude is: OK, I won a lot of things, but I still want to be part of the whole thing and that’s what I enjoy then - fair enough, I should do it.”
Aldag warned, however, at giving too much importance to Cavendish’s second place in Bordeaux without remembering what Cavendish had had to do just to be in the right place at the right time.
“For sure it’s at the back of the mind, to think ‘I’ve still got it so I can do it once again’. But what should also come to the back of his mind is all the effort he put into there.
“I don’t think there have been many years when Mark Cavendish worked as hard as he did this year, for this Tour de France.
“You looked at him, it wasn’t like he came in late, or too big, or with weight issues or this and that. No, he came in having done the Giro, he won that stage. It was a massive investment.
“And if we also look back, aside from the early years when you’re flying, how many times did Mark do two Grand Tours in a row?” [Prior to 2023, it was 2013 - Ed.]
Having worked with Cavendish for many years, Aldag argues that “it is his talent and his passion, and his instinct that gets him to win."
"But for him to get to the sprint, he probably has to work harder than many other guys. Now, can he do that hard work two years in a row?”
For that reason, Aldag believes, it could be important for Cavendish not to follow his emotions in the short term and instead concentrate on making a more measured answer.
“I saw that chain [after the Bordeaux stage], how it was twisted, there was no bullshit there, I’m pretty sure he’d have won it.”
“So, of course, the first reaction is ‘I know I can have it,’ ‘all I need is a proper leadout’, ‘all I need is proper team support and I can win three stages.
“But now, let it sink in, then sit back and look at your training files, look at your time away from home, look at all the mental struggles older guys have - ‘ah, modern cycling is crazy, you can’t believe how many risks young kids take…’ Then you weigh that up yourself and with your family."
"On the other hand," Aldag argues, "if it all works out well and if there is a Tour with a lot of sprint opportunities, too, to increase the number of chances, then Cavendish could well be back on track for a 35th stage victory in 2024."
