Ah, Mark Cavendish. The most divisive rider in the pro peloton has a new book out.
He seems to have decided that the best way to publicise it is to spend several pages trying to roll back the years on behalf of everyone’s favourite sociopathic doper, Lance Armstrong, coming out with a stream of claptrap that leaves the reader in no doubt that he’s definitely had one crash too many.
Now before we get to an investigation into the warped thinking expressed by Cavendish in print, I’ll ask that you watch this short extract from a very interesting film released earlier this year about the OmegaPharma-Quick Step team (warning: there is some strong language used in the video).
When I first watched this I was a little taken aback by the force and severity of Cavendish’s reaction, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt, figuring he must have been on a bad day and had perhaps been asked a similar question several times.
However, the extracts from his new book wash away those benefits, and leave the reader in no doubt that Cavendish not only wants to forget the past, he also believes that the man about whom he says has an incredible charisma didn’t really do much different than anyone else in that era.
“Like everyone else, I was well aware of the doping rumours that had swirled around Lance,” writes the Isle of Man native, “but never dwelled on them: firstly because I hadn’t been competing against him between 1999 and 2005; and, secondly, I had gathered from riders who had competed in that era that doping had been widespread if not endemic.”
‘Never dwelled on them’? Just because you’d never competed against him before?
But you would be just a year after the time that you speak of meeting him, in 2009 during his comeback.
That doesn’t seem to be worthy of a mention thought in Cav’s mind, despite the fact that USADA reckon there was a one in a million chance that Armstrong rode the 2009 Tour de France clean.
And then there’s the statement about how in that era, “doping had been widespread if not endemic.”
Ah, that old chestnut.
Way beyond its sell-by date is that particular nut.
LA, as we all know, not only doped his arse off, he also brought others into doping through various means and went after any of those riders –and indeed anyone at all – who later claimed he had doped with the single-mindedness of an assassin.
He wrecked careers, almost ruined a marriage, preyed on the desperation, hope and need to believe of cancer sufferers, but hey it’s ok, because Cavendish has chosen to “simply concentrate on the present.”
But the present, you see, is a product of the past. See how that works? You get here ‘cos you came from there. In life we learn that to solve problems almost invariably means we must work out the cause.
Not in Cavendish’s mind though. “To me,” he says, “it’s gone far beyond the point where the soul-searching has become useful to the sport.”
Soul-searching? Is that what this is?
I thought that what the majority of fans – people who are fed up with being cheated and taken for fools long enough – were after was a thorough investigation into just how we ended up in this state.
I thought they wanted to know role the major players had exactly, and then to work out, once that knowledge has been acquired, how the flip to sort this out so that the next generation of riders can escape the turmoil that so many have been led into by the very people they should have been able to trust with their health, safety and welfare.
But no. Apparently it’s soul-searching.
How dismissive that term is, describing something the sport truly needs in such a way that it seems lame, pointless, and almost teenage in its scope.
Yet what it really does is to reveal Cavendish for the apologist that he has become.
Cavendish though is not quite clever enough to thread together a credible argument on this one for two reasons.
First, there is no credible argument to be found here.
Secondly, he and his ghost writer, if he used one, just are not clever enough and they eventually expose the slackness in Cav’s logic.
“Now we’re asked to comment on Armstrong and have our morals judged on the strength of what we say, when a lot of us are, rightly or wrongly, too preoccupied with the here and now to have an opinion. Even though I was watching those Tours that Lance won, wide-eyed and innocent, I also can’t pretend that I’m eaten up with resentment or feel betrayed now [that] I know it was a big charade,” he writes.
But you say we should focus on the now, Cav. Then say that people who do that are “too preoccupied… to have an opinion.”
And yet here you are dishing one out, a feeble, apologetic one that attempts to reclaim some of the shine of the now impossibly-tarnished reputation of LA.
Apparently the thrills Armstrong dished out then under the guise – delivered whenever possible with a mighty bellow – of riding clean are still of greater worth than the revelations of the rampant and institutionalised doping that LA was a leader of.
Before trotting out the old argument that cycling has done more to bust drug cheats than any other sport and that tennis, football and others need to look at themselves in the mirror, he reveals that no matter how much Lance doped, the lasting memory for Cav will be of glory, not, as it should be, of fraud and deceit.
“As unjust, as distressing as it may be, as hard as it is for us to accept, I’m sure that Lance still feels that no one and nothing can take away the emotions of those seven Tours at the time, and the same really goes for those of us who were watching.”
This from the same man who said of the disgraced Italian rider Ricardo Ricco, this:
“The sport’s better off without him,” Cavendish said at the time. “He’s not a problem that the sport faces, he is the problem that the sport faces.”
Uh, like Armstrong was you mean?
“He doesn’t mirror a lot of riders, he’s a special case and I think we’re better off without him,” Cavendish continued.
“Obviously I hope he does recover well [from an adverse reaction to a blood transfusion], but I really do hope he becomes someone’s bitch in prison.”
Lovely stuff. But where’s the consistency? Do we forgive LA because he in fact DID reflect a lot of riders at that time?
Sorry, Mr. Cavendish, but these excerpts are nothing but evidence of very sloppy logic, and you’re wrong on all counts. Just plain wrong.
tony meadows
Guest
Lee, How about an acknowledgement that you used an OLD video OUT OF CONTEXT to construct your anti Cavendish article ? I see it as a campaign against a clean rider who has expressed his opinion of LA as a personal aqaintance as well as his own anti doping view.It is very small minded not to allow such a view. As for rehabilitation Cavendish has said clearly he is not in favour of the truth and rehabilitation process for LA because it wouldn't work on him.Surely thats clear enough? Personally I think there's more chance of Armstrong getting detention ahead of rehab !
Lee Rodgers
Expert
The rehabilitation of LA has begun. Comments like this from Cavendish only add to that.
Vivalasvegan
Guest
Gee Whizz Lee, Cav is a character, he is the Liam Gallagher of cycling. He polarises opinion but lights up the sport. What he does on a bike is special. He is a human headline and in an age when sports 'stars' are coached to say nothing, give nothing and do nothing beyond what they are contracted to do, I think Cav is a positive. Your attack appears to me pompous and churlish. He might not be a Rhodes Scholar but he has certainly earned the right to have an opinion in his own sport. Is he inconsistent? well, he isn't a politician... so what, we are all inconsistent. Your points add to the 'group mind' mentality about Armstrong, that he was the Emperor of Evil, and that anyone who does not submit to the view is dangerously off message. If Cav wants to leave it in the past, or if he thinks doping was endemic in the period, if he still admires Armstrong for the effort he put in, he has earned the right to say it. I am tired of cycling's version of the Spanish Inquisition. 'One off' athletes like Cav will hopefully continue to add colour to world sport, have opinions, say daft things and be allowed to have alternative opinions to the mainstream. He is paid to ride a bike really fast, not ensure that the world all thinks alike.
tony meadows
Guest
Thanks for your opinion but you're wrong when you say Cav wrote about LA then refused to answer questions. The video where he refuseed the questions about LA was from Jan.2013 at a presentation of the OPQS Team Could it be he felt there was a time and a place,after all that was 11 months ago and not at his book presentation. So you're perhaps premature in saying he refuses to allow the topic.I personally have read a great deal of comment from him re LA prior to his book.
Joe Frost
Editor
I've never ridden a competitive cycling race in my life. Now my whole career is there in black and white for the world to see, can I have an opinion? Cav writing about Lance and then not allowing a journo to ask about it seems to feed Lee's whole argument - if Cav was confident in his ability to answer questions about Lance, he'd allow them. If he didn't want to answer questions about Lance, he shouldn't have mentioned Lance in his book. Instead, I daresay someone along the way had called him out on his opinions on Lance - as Lee has here - and now Cav won't allow the topic, which he first brought to the table to help sell his book, be re-visited. Also, c'mon Cav, you can swear more originally than that (you can also feel free to Tweet on my opinions).
tony meadows
Guest
I quote:- "Cavendish though is not quite clever enough to thread together a credible argument on this one for two reasons Firstly,there is no credible argument to be found here." So just how clever does one need to be to find an answer where there is no answer ? What has the video to do with the content of your article.Yes Cavendish swears and yes he can be annoyed by a journo who, as he says, just wants to talk about Lance.So where's the relevence?Cheap shot. Some of your other comments I also find difficulty with your logic,but I'll rest my argument on my opening comment. I have however a suggestion for you.Why not write your own book on your career and opinions. Then YOU can say what YOU like.Pehaps Cavendish will tweet what he thinks of your book and your intellegence.
Steve
Guest
Godwin's Law.................
Lee Rodgers
Expert
Armstrong really IS black and white. He's still manipulating the media - see the recent CyclingNews interview, if you can call it an interview - to see what I mean. His rehabilitation is underway. Whether it gets anywhere depends on us. Does he have any place left in the sport? Yes or no? Or a maybe? Surely it has to be no. But I guess that is too black and white. Unless he will talk of what really happened and who was complicit, I personally don't want to hear from him. Greg Lemond recently said that at best without dope Armstrong would be 'top 30' at the Tour. His opinion only I know, but it's a decent one to start with - he won three more Tour de France than LA, in any case! Who knows what LA would have been without the dope? We will never know. He was a huge part of the reason we will never know, because with a character like him at the top of it, dictating things to teammates, the media and the UCI, anyone clean had no chance. Nice effort to link black and white thinking - as you call mine - to the 20th Century's greatest dictators (though you missed Mao, and Pol Pot, surely worth a mention). But they are from history - I thought it was best to 'forget the past'?
Lee Rodgers
Expert
Surprised it took so long for that argument to appear here, Stevo! Good work! Better late than never I guess.
Lee Rodgers
Expert
Absolutely agree, Bobo, it's one rule for our lot and another for them. Comments like Cav's almost mock the cycling fan and are at best inherently ignorant of the pervasive nature of the problem that is screwing our sport to death. At best. How is it that this is the voice that has come from the peloton, and not one of any sense?
Stevo
Guest
Dirk, You hit the nail on the head mate, perspective !! For gods sake the guy who wrote the article is a middle aged POM maskerading as a "PRO" (pretty sure pro means actually making your income from the job) trying to tell us all he knows about cycling cause he races in Asia. Madre Mia whats the world coming too. Maybe Dirk you should write for this sight.
dirk westerduin
Guest
Interesting. This is how you interpret Cavendish' book. But your hermeneutics are yours and are not representing The Truth per se. Cav is not clever enough, you write. That's big. I say you're not clever enough to put things in real context. In fact, you have things in common with Armstrong. I'm not referring to your cycling talent, Armstrong was one of the best athletes ever. I'm referring to your black and white perception, it's a kind of reality distortion we saw and see in Lance Armstrong as well. Whenever somebody tries to put doping in (historical) perspective and therefore doubts whether Armstrong should be considered Evil, you try to make those people look ridiculous. Armstrong was an asshole. True. But he was a superb athlete. Nobody planned, prepared or trained as hard as he did. This is the biggest reason why he reached his level. making people believe, like on this website, that Armstrong was only a cheater is ridiculous. In the past, and I have mentioned this before, doping was something completely different from nowadays. The clean up is good, in the last decades it ran completely out of hands. But Cavendish is right if he says: 'Forget the past'. Many people do not understand what they are talking about. - Can only think about it in a black 'n white way, maybe like Mussolini, or Stalin, or Hitler promoted their politics. It's dangerous, way too easy, and not according to reality. Reality is not, and has not been, the way you present it.
Bobo
Guest
Lee This is the sort of attitude that I find infuriating in pro riders. The easy scapegoats who are unpopular in the bunch are ostracised - the Riccos and the Simeonis - whereas those who wield power or have/had mates in the bunch are lionised and forgiven - Armstrong, Millar, Cipo, Jalabert, and countless others. There's no consistency in the treatment of dopers, which leads one to the conclusion that riders aren't really bothered by the doping, but simply don't mind the excuse to hang crap on blokles in the bunch they don't like. And if riders don't care about dopers and doping per se, what does it tell us about their attitude to doping? Has anything really changed? Until the peloton polices itself, nothing will really change. Cav's no different in this regard from countless others in the peloton. Listen to O'Grady (before he was busted), Evans, Millar, Voigt, etc etc. They have a funny way of opposing the rats in their ranks, that's for sure.