Original subtitles

I'm down at the Scottish Provident site in Crickley.

I'm going to talk to a few of the seven to eight-year-olds.

The first person I'm gonna talk to is Mark Turton.

What's the season been like for you?

Quite good.

But I've had a few crashes here and there.

Down here we have Joseph Dooley.

He's in the under sixes. Joseph, what are you going...

No, I'm seven.

Oh, you're seven?

Right, now we come to the really fast man.

And he's Mark Cavendish.

Mark is going to the Scottish Provident Challenge '96.

How do you think your form's going, Mark?

- Okay. - Okay.

How are you going tonight?

Okay. I did better than I thought I would.

- Did you win, or were you second? - No, I was about that far.

Christian won, as he keeps saying.

Okay, well, Mark's going to Challenge '96.

Thank you. We'll let them get on with the race,

they're just about to start and the first line is off.

A world champion at 21.

Mark Cavendish, youngest British rider

to get a stage win at the Tour de France.

He is the fastest man in the world right now.

There's nobody even comparing.

There's the Missile.

70 km/h, what a sprint.

He has got the big dream.

No British cyclist has ever been remotely close.

Win number 25.

Already, he's taken the third most victories

in Tour de France history.

From perfection, where do you go?

What a way to stick it to everyone else.

Fuck off.

Is this live?

- Yeah. - Oh, sorry.

Cavendish has been disqualified from today's sprint.

You know that little thing in your mind

that says, "I shouldn't really do that."

Oh, Mark Cavendish is down.

Mark, how are you feeling?

We get a lot of questions about Mark Cavendish.

He hasn't got it anymore.

The harder things got, the less he talked to anyone.

Stop cycling and start a different life.

You don't go from being the best in the world...

to nothing.

I'd been many years...

just a winning machine.

The Missile of the Isle of Man, Mark Cavendish.

Without the Tour de France, cycling doesn't exist.

Even before I rode the Tour de France,

I was obsessed with it.

These bike riders suffering all these incredible distances

for three weeks in July.

It's addictive. It's...

it's savage, but so beautiful.

So beautiful.

We race 21 individual stages

over 3,500 kilometers.

A rider wins one stage of the Tour de France,

it makes their whole career.

Not just their year, their whole career.

One stage.

At this point in my career,

I'd been racing ten years.

I'd won 26 stages.

Here is one of the superstar international sprinters,

Mark Cavendish!

It's just like a complete circus.

It's carnage.

That's so cool. All done.

I try to make it as much as an adventure as I can for the kids.

When I met Mark, I was a model,

and the photographer we were with said,

"Do you know that he's a really good cyclist?"

And I was like, "Well, brilliant."

I'd never watched a bike race in my life.

Cycling's really quite a confusing sport.

But I realized what a huge part of Mark's life this was.

So if I wanted to understand Mark, I had to understand cycling.

You have to have tunnel vision.

You have to be able to block out all the noise,

all the distraction, and focus 100% on what you need.

I had my trusted teammate Bernie Eisel

who'd been with me most of my career.

You put your life in people's hands.

You have to trust they're gonna give you everything they have.

You see his emotions and he says he's nervous,

so the last thing I should be, is to be nervous.

We were like a married couple.

We have spent probably 180 days per year in a hotel room together.

Bernie Eisel.

The best looking man

in the history

of cycling.

We definitely saw each other more than we saw our wives.

Bernie?

Do you think we should get up?

The race is underway.

3,535 kilometers between the peloton and Paris in the final.

Cav is a sprinter.

Paired with athletics, you have a marathon runner.

You have a 100-meter sprinter.

Cav has to do both over three and a half weeks.

You've got 180 best bike riders in the world.

Everything's at just another level.

There's been a fall. Contador is down.

Contador, battered and bruised.

The pressure's high. Everyone's nervous. There's often crashes.

Everyone's going to go all guns blazing.

Everyone wants that chance at the yellow jersey.

The yellow jersey is worn by the leader of the race overall.

It was really quite rare for a sprinter to be able to get it.

I hadn't worn the yellow jersey at the Tour de France.

It's about the only thing I hadn't done.

This year's my chance, you know.

Mark Cavendish might have a problem here.

Fucking prick!

Shake of the head as that motorbike went past.

Looking for the team car for a bike change.

Problems for Dimension Data.

Hoping to get Cavendish back to the top of the podium

as a stage winner.

My job was always to keep Cav

in a safe spot in the peloton through the whole race.

You have to protect him.

Shelter him from the wind.

Make sure there's nothing that makes him crash.

Get him to the front, drop him off at 180 meters to go.

The only thing he has to do is head down

and sprint as fast as he can to the finish line.

Going so fast. They're over a kilometer to go now.

And then there was this big, long straight finish slightly uphill.

But the speed we were doing was phenomenal.

Cav going towards the sprint finish now, riding at 65 km/h.

There's a big crash just behind!

Spearing up through the center,

it's Peter Sagan. He wants a piece of today as well.

Mark wasn't really anywhere.

And all you could hear in the commentary was, "Kittel, Kittel, Peter Sagan."

Peter Sagan comes through the line!

Peter Sagan, the world champion!

I was coming,

and the line's coming,

felt Kittel on my left...

Cavendish comes from absolutely nowhere.

The Manx Missile!

Yes! He takes it!

He gets the yellow jersey! He nails it!

Wow, Mark Cavendish! You beauty!

I just remember us all screaming and cheering and Frey bursting into tears

'cause we'd all screamed so loud

that it scared the absolute life out of him.

- What a sprint. - Well done, Cavendish!

Well done!

Good on you, mate. Well done.

Well, he's the center of the world's attention again, Mark Cavendish.

Justifiably so.

It's Mark Cavendish putting the yellow jersey on.

It's very rare for the sprinters to wear it.

It isn't normally something that Mark would get the opportunity to go for.

Look how happy he is.

He's never worn this jersey,

and he's wearing it today.

It was incredible.

This is the most iconic item of clothing in sport.

I'd done everything else I could do, I'd never worn one.

This victory moves Cavendish

one step closer to beating Eddy Merckx's all-time record of stage wins.

All of a sudden, everybody starts with this narrative of,

"Is Mark going to break Eddy Merckx's record?"

Mark Cavendish makes it win number 28.

I can't believe it!

The great Eddy Merckx, I mean, he's just a legend.

Breaking the historic record of Eddy Merckx

was somewhere in the clouds in our heads.

Cavendish gets there!

Win number 29. He's closing in on Merckx.

The thing with Eddy Merckx's record,

I never started that. That wasn't me.

All of a sudden, it's all I'm going for.

Four stage wins this year.

Will Cavendish return in 2017

and claim that record?

Fuck.

Like, people had always only talked about Merckx.

Now I've got to beat Merckx.

For fuck's sake.

It doesn't matter who I beat. I'll beat everyone.

Good luck, man.

You going to time it, or do you want me to?

Yeah.

I always need to be doing something

that keeps your hands busy, really.

I think my record is at 1 minute 20.

If I don't get it under two minutes then I'm usually upset.

Yeah, he's definitely obsessive with many things.

Starting to get stressed now.

He needs control.

Like a nervous tick.

Uh... There we go, stop.

To freak him out, I would just leave a cupboard open.

Just leave it open.

Just wait 'til he explodes.

Everything was to perfection. And that's how he worked.

That's how he became

the best sprinter in the world.

It can be definitely one of those aspects that really brings you to the top.

But it also can break you.

'Cause it's a lot of pressure that you build up to yourself.

The whole of the team was built around me.

You feel that pressure.

Even one stage victory will take him so close

to Eddy Merckx's all-time record in the Tour de France.

Mark's on 30. And Merckx is on 34.

It's fucking noisy.

There's helicopters.

Motorbikes.

Crowds.

There's riders shouting at each other.

A wall of noise and you have to try and focus.

This is where the drive has to come,

but where is Mark Cavendish?

He's about two or three riders back at the moment.

Get him forward then sprint to the line.

400 meters to go. There's Sagan, now pushing.

Cavendish trying to force a gap on the right.

Oh, he hits a barrier!

That was a violent crash for Mark Cavendish.

And that looks deliberate.

In the bus, I see that injured athlete,

and I see the replay and I see how he...

he comes from behind and I see that Mark would have won.

What would you put someone into the barriers for?

Doing 70 km/h.

There was no other scenario

than him winning that stage if he doesn't crash there.

100% I'd win that stage.

100%.

You immediately get into this angry mode.

I posted the only tweet I ever tweeted in my life, kind of like,

"Pure violence. Let's see what UCI is going to do about it."

We decided to disqualify Peter Sagan from Tour de France 2017

as he endangered some of his colleagues seriously.

For sure I don't agree with them

because I think I didn't do something wrong.

Mark, how are you feeling?

Peter Sagan's been disqualified from the Tour, what's your reaction?

It's the first I've heard of it. Um...

I don't know. The jury will do what they do, um...

I was a little bit confused with the elbow, in a way.

That's something I'd like to speak to him about anyway.

Thanks, Mark.

The Tour is now without it's greatest ever sprinter,

and the world champion.

Fucking raging.

I nearly lost my finger.

Got a hole in my shoulder blade.

Mark wasn't good.

He was really struggling with the crash in particular.

I felt like I had jet lag, you know.

Tired. Just all the time tired.

He would sit down and be asleep in a second.

He would walk to the top of the stairs and would fall asleep.

I said to...

doctor, "Sorry, something's not right."

"I need to get a blood test this week."

And we got a text message from the team doctor,

"Cav, you've got Epstein-Barr."

I was like, "What's Epstein-Barr?"

Turns out it's quite common in endurance athletes.

It can tip very easily into chronic fatigue.

Irreversible chronic fatigue.

There's no medicine that can make it better.

Only rest.

It could wipe out half a season.

I had about six weeks off the bike.

But I wanted to race.

Was he ready for Sanremo?

Even if he wasn't in great shape,

he could still pull something off just out of his talent.

I'm at home with the kids, watching.

50K to go, still there.

20K to go, still there.

And I'm thinking, "He could maybe do this."

Mark Cavendish giving himself a very good opportunity here.

- We've got a crash! - Whoa!

Dimension Data rider down there on the right-hand side.

It's Mark Cavendish down at the back.

He hit the yellow bollard.

The kids are like, "Is he all right?"

So I took them into the other room,

and when I came back he was still on the floor.

Here it is on the right-hand side, Mark Cavendish.

- Oh, my God. - Oh, no! Oh, no!

That's horrible.

And that is something we do not need to see.

- God. Yeah. - We hope he's okay.

I'd seen enough crashes with Mark to know that that was a long time

that he hadn't got up.

He sounded scared,

and he said, "Girl, I can't feel my legs."

Yeah, it's terrifying.

Man, it's terrifying.

My heel was fucked.

My knee was fucked.

My hip was fucked.

Like, I couldn't walk.

The crash was odd because,

I mean, Mark did do Sanremo so many times before.

He knows he has to take that roundabout.

It didn't make any sense to me.

I just couldn't make sense of how he'd hit a traffic island.

Mark Cavendish had another major crash.

It's kinda indescribable the way he hit that barrier

and literally launched.

Like he was in the fucking Olympics.

I gave it a ten.

I gave it a ten.

The media picks up.

Suddenly he was too old

and his reaction time wouldn't be good enough anymore,

and he should probably stop.

Do you start to get a reputation

as a guy that goes down, to stay away from?

Yeah, absolutely.

"Don't ride behind that guy."

It was like, "Shut the fuck up."

"You don't know what you're on about."

Ten years before, people were saying I was finished.

Ten years.

The media and him both treated each other

with an equal level of contempt.

He felt like they were trying to trip him up all the time.

Was it your fault, Mark?

- Was what my fault? - The crash.

Why are you taking my tape recorder?

What was my fault, that I lost the sprint?

Yeah, it was my fault.

He never had any media training.

Can you be certain you're in good enough shape for the Tour?

Can you tell me 100% that one of these journalists isn't fucking your wife?

Could be forgiven for thinking that maybe he was a bit of a dick.

Oh! Ally! Can you get him away please?

Fuck off.

We are here.

I feel I've got a right to have a chip on my shoulder.

It's fucking horrible.

I use that to win whatever I can win.

I'd had this thing since I was young that I wanted to be world champion.

Who will win the Championship of 2011?

Cavendish has to deliver.

Put all your chips in the center.

That's how I do it.

Either win or fucking don't win.

Cavendish on one side of the road, Greipel on the other.

And Cavendish, is he going to get there on the throne?

What a finish!

Mark Cavendish is the World Road Race Champion!

What a perfect result!

I did it.

World Champion.

I always feel that I have to fight.

Of course, I'm still having to prove myself,

having to fight.

Casper was born that May.

And, uh, that was super nice.

He's always had to leave quite soon after we've had the babies.

And I remember sitting in the kitchen with Casper, and him leaving.

And Casper was, I don't know, a few days old.

A week old, maybe. And I remember crying when he left.

Three days after Casper was born, I left to go.

I was on my own then until the Tour de France.

I train more.

I get more tired.

I'm not improving at all. My numbers aren't getting better.

So the way to compensate that is to get lighter.

I've seen him skinny a couple of times, you know.

But this was a little bit different.

I started eating less and less, like, I wasn't...

I didn't eat anything.

I stopped eating.

The addictive part was, it was the...

the losing weight, I could see, rapidly, how quickly I was losing weight.

And it was the first improvement I'd seen

in anything, for a long time.

One day, I went for dinner with a friend.

I didn't eat that much, but I, like...

You know when you...

You're like... Oh!

And then you get a bit of saliva and that in your mouth,

like a bit wet feeling, and then you know the only way

is to just make yourself sick.

It was... It...

We get a lot of questions from listeners

and viewers about Mark Cavendish.

His form's totally questionable.

Cavendish is just coming off this bout with...

with Epstein-Barr, chronic fatigue,

and we're talking about him trying to break Eddy's record,

which isn't going to happen.

Team management, media,

riders, teammates,

everyone was like, "Okay, is he doing enough?"

"Is he still hungry enough?"

The pressure on this race is immense,

and having all the sponsors and the partners around

comes with big responsibilities.

Everybody wants you to be successful.

The sponsors want a return on their investment.

And there's 70 people whose jobs rely on that, you know?

We're trying to go to 34 stages with Mark Cavendish,

and beat Eddy Merckx's record.

We had a one-leader strategy and you base everything on Mark.

They fully believe the Manx Missile

can get stage win number 31.

Things weren't great, but I put the work in.

Things had to come good from putting the work in, you know.

Fucking move!

No. Go, go, go!

Close the gap!

What the fuck is he doing?

Kick!

He's out. He's gone.

Mark Cavendish just doesn't have the legs at the moment.

His legs aren't doing what they used to do.

- Cav flinched. - Mmm-hmm.

Mark Cavendish seven years ago never would have.

He would have been like, "I'm running through the brick wall."

He didn't care, but he does now.

I don't know what's wrong with it. Fuck!

No, don't move it.

It was like he was spooked.

I think his time has come and gone.

And I love Mark Cavendish, he's a good bud.

He doesn't have the head or the mentality for it.

This is our worst season we've ever had.

And we've only won five races this year.

This time last year we'd won 20 by now.

At the moment, we're a sinking ship.

Even myself, I said, "Cav, we still know you're one of the quickest guys there,

but with the form, with the shape you're in at the moment,

we can't get you to the finish line."

We were called to a meeting that night.

Doug starts off with,

"I'm getting it in the neck from the sponsors."

"We're not anywhere near it, and this isn't good enough."

And I'm like, "Doug, all the stuff you're saying,

you're the one that signed the contract."

"Don't put that on us."

"We're doing our best."

And he didn't like me saying that.

And he stormed off the bus.

You called the fucking meeting.

Uh, arguments...

It definitely became toxic there.

It might be short, but it's brutal.

And it is littered with huge climbs.

Fear for the sprinters just trying to survive.

Cav is a sprinter.

He hates climbing.

We got to the mountains. I suffered every day.

Had no power.

There he is, Mark Cavendish, at the back of the race.

And under real threat of elimination today.

Every stage has a time cut.

And missing the time cut,

I think that was for Cav always the biggest fear.

This would put him out of the Tour.

And I'd never been eliminated from the Tour de France in my career.

Never had I been out of time.

I'd given everything to be there.

I'd just left my three-day-old boy.

I knew what he'd sacrificed.

I knew that both of us cried when he left that day.

Any rider coming across the finish line now is outside the official time cut-off.

And Mark Cavendish is still on the road.

I never just stopped, you know,

and I wasn't about to.

I just wanted to finish.

Mark Cavendish is showing his courage,

and his class, by pushing on.

Cav just came across the line an hour back.

- Come on. Oof. - Yeah, that's rough.

- Sad to see. Wish him the best. - He is a sweetheart, but...

When the fucking chips are down...

Would you call this rock bottom?

Yeah.

Think so.

Oh, fuck.

If you think rationally,

you think that the human body starts to decrease in performance

at the age of what, 30, 35?

Maybe it's a moment, maybe it's time.

What it hurt him the most to fail, myself too, is like...

every stage win, tough ones,

great stages he'd won, were forgotten.

It was a special day.

I've got goosebumps now, you know.

I had fire in my eyes that day. Fire.

Bradley Wiggins, winner of the Tour de France is going to lead

onto the final turn of the Champs-Élysées.

It doesn't get better than this.

I mean, Bradley Wiggins,

we were like brothers.

Probably the strongest rider in the world there.

Strongest sprinter in the world there. Both British.

Pretty fucking cool.

Just go and conquer the world, like.

One kilometer to go.

We were going to finish off in Paris in style.

What a team effort!

Perfect delivery from Cavendish and this is where he'll light it up!

He practically owns the place.

Look at the gap!

Nobody's going to catch this man.

Four wins in the last four years! Right here!

It was an incredible day.

I'm getting led out by Bradley

in the British team.

And I'd won the Tour de France.

That was the best day of my career.

Without a doubt.

How can I do everything?

Train harder. Not eat.

Be on my own in bootcamp mode.

It'd just be so bad.

He was quite desperate, I think, by that point.

He was quite short with me because I didn't understand.

You don't go from being the best in the world

to really not even capable of...

How? How? How has it happened?

We argued about nothing.

We were so...

lost in the middle of everything that was going on.

Like, I was a nightmare to live with, but...

Peta could have eased that stuff, do you know what I mean?

Like, she could have.

He was...

not really him at that particular moment.

Was I going fucking crazy?

What the fuck was wrong with me?

So I called my old team doctor.

In the past when something went wrong,

he was very angry and he wanted to get it right.

But in this moment, he was hurt.

He was suffering.

And to see Mark suffering is something very unique.

I had gastro exams.

I had psychological assessments.

I had neurological tests. Reaction tests.

Blood tests.

The blood results showed that there was an active infection in his body.

We call it Epstein-Barr virus.

So, for Mark, it's a disaster.

It was still there.

He said, "You shouldn't have been racing."

"You should have stopped there immediately."

If you continue to race with Epstein-Barr or any other infection,

you always go deeper and deeper, so you can't recover anymore

and even to ride a race like the Tour de France, it's impossible.

The psychological testing results were very low.

Yeah, I was told I had clinical depression.

Close to the situation where I would say,

"This patient has to stay in a hospital."

I hadn't thought I had...

any sort of mental health disorder.

It was difficult because...

Mark had not really been anybody

that had bought into the idea of depression.

Mark was very much like,

"Well, you would just decide that you'd be stronger than that."

Or, you know, like, sort yourself out.

I wasn't sure if he would get out of the depression

without quitting cycling.

To recommend to stop cycling and leave all the pressure away

and start a different life.

When things aren't good with Mark, he completely shuts down.

Helge was someone that I could definitely confide in.

Helge said, "Please just try and hold on."

"Like, try and hold on because he is there still,

underneath, kind of, this."

"You just have to try and hold on."

"He doesn't mean a lot of the things that he's saying."

"I know that doesn't make it any easier for you."

"But...

we just have to hope that when we come through the other side of this,

the person that you do recognize is still there."

Welcome to South Africa for those who've not been here before,

and welcome to the team building and planning camp for 2019.

We've got an Aussie here at the moment, so David, do you want to come on up?

So this is a bit of a coup for us

because often sports psychology and athlete welfare is kind of overlooked.

So it's a real luxury to have David here for this week to work with you guys.

Usually the only time people call me

is when the excrement hits the oscillation device, as they say.

We'd met at a team training camp in Cape Town.

They'd had a really terrible year in 2018.

And they were looking for some type of performance enhancement.

So we had a strategy this year that was "Better together."

I was thinking about "Onwards and upwards"

and some people advised me to say,

"Fuck that, we're fighting for our future."

The head coach at the time was very, very critical of Cav.

Cav wasn't displaying the behaviors of a marquee rider.

You could see that he wasn't in shape.

We have a program that all cyclists use

that showed he was underperforming.

Do we really keep him? Do we not keep him?

I mean, what is the way out of this?

He hadn't been doing the training.

There's mistruths when it comes to his training.

Also with his eating. Um...

So all that stuff just didn't add up.

Team management thought, "Okay, it's an older rider who had a great career

that we used pretty well in the first years to attract sponsors,

but now he's old, he's not fast."

How much are we paying this person?

And what is he actually doing? Is he on a holiday?

He's just, you know...

Is he taking the piss?

At the start of the season, he's underperforming

more than what we thought he would.

Many have been asking about the whereabouts of Mark Cavendish.

Not in any of the two or three front groups we've seen today.

Mark Cavendish has been dropped.

Rolf called me and said, "Cav's done, he's finished."

"He's telling everyone that, you know..."

"He's handshaking people and saying he's finished."

"Last time you'll see him."

If you always try to live in this world of glory and fame

and being untouchable, and, uh...

on top of the game,

I think that really makes things super difficult on the human level.

I had a lot of talks with Peta there

over the period of time.

Because that is what, ultimately, also saves Mark all the time.

You know, falling back to the place where the family is.

It was completely irrational how cross he would be about something

or how upset something would make him.

I didn't know this version of him at all.

But I was sleeping in the same bed as him.

I was cooking for him, cleaning for him,

trying to make sure he was okay. Trying to fix him.

It would be like, "Well, if you hadn't have let me be on my own all that time,

maybe we wouldn't be here."

And then the house was just too loud, so he couldn't be in the house.

We'd have to not stay in the house.

I didn't have anything, didn't want anything, didn't...

do anything, didn't feel anything.

Just...

You're just fucking empty, like, you know.

The sense of worthlessness.

And I was scared that I was going to go past my limit

and not be able to come back again.

I would then ring Helge and be like,

"I don't know where he's gone, I don't know what to do."

And everyone realized that something was really, really bad with him.

I'd lost any get up that I'd ever had.

Just to be a person, to be a dad.

To be a friend, a husband, like...

I think there's a high risk that you harm yourself,

or even that you commit suicide.

Mark and I made a deal.

I said, "Before you do something to yourself...

call me."

Walking through the small Isle of Man airport,

and looking around for Mark Cavendish,

and there was this lovely, lovely lady who said, "Are you David?"

"Mmm. Yes." And it was Mark's mom.

And I actually said, "Where's Mark?"

I'd never really been a fan of sports psychologists.

I always feel judged by a psychologist.

Should I not cross my arms in front of you?

What do you do with your hands?

You know, they're reading me.

I get to the front door,

and I hear, "Sorry, Mom, I'm in the toilet!"

And, yeah, Cav was evacuating his stomach contents

because he'd... slightly hungover.

More than slightly.

I thought it was a waste of time doing it.

It's like, "Okay, what have I actually walked into here?"

I just thought,

"Doesn't work for me," you know?

I was making sure that the situation wasn't acute enough

to have to call someone to put him in the hospital.

Because you were worried he was going to harm himself?

Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah.

Peta, she was extremely concerned for her husband.

"Is my life worth it anymore?" "This is not worth it."

Did you have any comprehension of how worried Peta, Rolf,

everybody was about you?

No, not at all.

No.

I was too consumed in self-pity to care about what anyone...

cared about me.

Needed some time with friends.

They just knew Cav as Cav.

Didn't care where the performance was. It was just him.

And, uh, yeah, love him for him.

I've known Cav pretty much my whole life.

He used to come round my house in Onchan and babysit me for the day.

And he'd take me to the park.

And we'd all go off on our bikes.

Pete's loose as fuck, like...

And...

a good guy, like, I love him.

I've loved him since he was a kid.

He's a really hard personality and character

to understand and get your head around.

He always holds his cards close to his chest

in terms of how he's feeling and who he is.

So, he seemed fine, but then I probably seemed fine,

you know, for large parts of my life when I haven't been, so...

Cav's identity is winning bike races.

It's who he is. It's what gets him out of bed in the morning.

What does life look like without it, do you know what I mean?

His happy place has always been on his bike, by himself.

I rode a scooter beside him every day for ten days. Um...

And I refused to speak until he spoke to me first.

We'd talk about some eating issues in the past

and some pressures to perform.

What is it that's out of control in his life

that he's trying to control with eating?

He is a perfectionist,

and he likes a certain way of doing things.

A lot of people would be happy with who they are as a person

and don't feel the need to prove people wrong, do you know what I mean?

Where does that come from?

And we stopped at this little field.

He's like, "Do you know what this is?" I'm like, "No."

He's like, "This is where I first started racing a bike."

He said, "My dad used to take me here, and I'd race my bike."

He said, "This is where it started."

And I knew. It was like, "I've got you."

My mom is really emotional.

Everything is clouded by emotion. Everything.

My dad's very logical.

Both of them are more extreme than I am.

Then they got divorced and that.

I was about ten.

Yeah, it wasn't easy at all.

About that time that they split up,

I started cycling.

He came back to young Cav, the eight-year-old kid

that rode his bike because it got him away from things.

Right now, we come to the really fast man.

And he's Mark Cavendish.

Mark, how do you think your form's going?

- Okay. - Okay.

How are you going tonight?

Okay. I did better than I thought I would.

- Did you win, or were you second? - No, I was about that far.

I could ride a bike pretty quick, you know.

Mark is going to the Scottish Provident Challenge '96.

Even when I was a kid, I had to be the best at stuff.

That is, if you're good at something, you want to be even better.

And then, when you're better at something,

you get even better at it.

It snowballs, doesn't it?

I was just loving being out.

There was no structure to the training, but there was a purpose to it.

You know?

He found that

his joy wasn't in racing his bike.

His joy was in being, just cycling.

And that bike is...

Was a sense of freedom.

He was really angry with management,

and he goes, "Hey, Siri, who is Doug Ryder?"

And Siri would return, "I don't know who that is."

And he'd laugh. He'd think that's amazing.

And then after that he'd go, "Hey, Siri, who's Mark Cavendish?"

We wanted to have these sessions so you guys can understand each other.

And learn from each other

because there's younger riders that haven't been in the classics a long time.

It is all about the best connected team

in every which way possible.

Mark came back to the team,

and it was clear that this is now a new fresh start.

You know what, why don't we go full steam ahead,

I'll come back to Tour de France, and, uh...

and win.

So let's get him back into sprinting.

Let's, you know, get him back to focus on what he's good at.

So, Dimension Data, they had a policy

of not selecting their Tour de France team until very late.

We went down the list of who should and shouldn't go.

That was clearly dividing the team

into Mark supporters and Mark non-supporters.

That phone call went on for, I think, three hours or so.

It's still, to this day,

one of the weirdest performance calls I've ever been associated with.

It was between Mark Cavendish to go to the Tour de France

and another bike rider.

Our best chance is Mark Cavendish,

and people like it or don't, but it's our best chance.

And you can argue whatever you want to argue,

it remains our best chance.

Don't tell me he's too old because he's not.

Don't tell me his talent is gone because talent does not go.

Doug Ryder was quite vocal in what he thought they should do.

So I'm up on this mountain, and, uh...

and my phone starts going.

"What do you mean I've not been selected for the Tour de France?"

Fucking distraught, man.

I was angry.

I'd never missed a Tour de France.

I called eight names,

and Mark was included,

and then, of course, the team owner has the right to overrule me,

which he did.

There's been some suggestions of tension in the team,

and there has been a resignation.

Look, this was a team decision in the end.

I'm not the only person that makes a decision on the selection.

So I think that was the end point

for Mark at Dimension Data, and for myself as well.

Then lockdown happened.

Three or four...

Really good. Thank you so much.

We were at home all together

and we had the longest period of time we'd ever spent in one block together,

which was ten weeks, which doesn't really sound that much.

It's the most time I've ever spent with Peta, let alone with the kids.

I built a little indoor trainer

and put a kids' bike on it for Casper to ride it with me.

It felt like we could breathe again a little bit.

♪ Down and up ♪

- ♪ The man pulled the ladder up, up, up ♪ - ♪ Up, up, up ♪

We'd been holding our breaths and just hoping for the best.

Don't allow him.

Maybe I could have held on for another two years.

Maybe I'd have held on for ten years.

Maybe I'd have held on for a month.

I don't know.

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

This is what we were waiting for.

Like, this, now.

Just to be home was, like, so different than what I'd ever had.

And I loved it.

I really did.

Mark Cavendish signs for new team, Bahrain McLaren.

Hopes are high for a change in his fortunes.

McLaren were coming into cycling.

The most exciting project in cycling for years and years and years.

First race back since lockdown.

I couldn't sprint.

Even the biggest dreamers

lost the hope that he's going to be the Mark Cavendish from before ever again.

It's been 16 years I've done this. I know how to sprint.

I just can't sprint. I can't do it.

Everybody was questioning, "Why is he still doing it?"

"Why is he still racing?" "Why is he continuing?"

He's not there anymore. He's never going to win a bike race.

Well, there's Mark Cavendish taking off his race number,

number 21, from his bike and placed it in his back pocket.

What significance is there in that?

I see you're getting emotional.

It's perhaps the last race in my career now.

So I'm a little bit...

Do you really think this is your last race?

Maybe, yeah.

Suddenly my phone was "Ding, ding, ding, ding."

And I thought, "Oh, my God."

Just, like, a million people had sent

obviously this bloody clip of Mark crying.

I loved always Mark, and my heart was breaking.

So I could not see it,

and I called him.

Patrick Lefevere, my old boss at Quick-Step,

asked me to send my CV.

My list of 160 race wins.

If somebody's in the shit,

and you raise the hands to help,

it's nothing to do with a smart businessman.

It's more sentimental.

He said to me, "Yeah,

I've got one spot left, but I don't have any budget."

So I asked him, "Okay, what if I found a sponsor?"

I took him with my heart, and he came with empty hands.

And everybody declared me crazy to take him.

You cannot explain everything in life.

Why you fall in love with one lady and not with the other?

I was assigned to a new coach.

Vasi.

So, can I say that he had the reputation of being an asshole?

Or gonna cut?

No, that's great.

- Is it allowed, yeah? - Yeah.

He was a guy who was shouting, he didn't show respect to the other guys.

Not even to his opponents, but also to his own teammates.

He was shouting if something was not going right.

Yeah, I was like... Everybody was like,

"Mark Cavendish is coming."

"That's going to be a pain in the ass."

Yeah. That was the first thought.

A pain in the ass.

Fuck, he was so direct with what he said straight away.

I would tell him directly, "Mark, today was a shit day."

"You were shit. You're not good enough."

"So you have to try harder."

I fucking liked this guy, you know.

Top coaches were saying that he's never going to win again.

Let's do it.

Let's prove them wrong.

Mark Cavendish was third choice as sprinter.

I'd be the bottom of the ladder.

But also that meant

I didn't have the weight of the team resting on my shoulders, you know.

Vasi said, "Come to Greece...

and do a bootcamp."

We did some long rides and the climbs around Athens.

It's the climbs that used to be my training rides.

He's passionate.

He lives every pedal rev with you.

Mark had Epstein-Barr.

Training was really hard, but he was responding.

My wife cooked for him some special Greek food.

He was playing with my kids.

That was really, really special.

He's just hyper-emotional,

like, super-melodramatic, you know?

He's brilliant. He just wears...

He doesn't even wear his heart on his sleeve, he'd, like...

He just holds it out in front of him.

Everything was better.

His numbers were there,

he was sprinting faster than before, he was, uh,

climbing faster than before.

He was like a 20-year guy who's hungry for his first win of his life.

I'd push harder and harder and harder.

But, fuck me, I was going good, you know.

He was like Rocky Balboa.

Rocky Balboa training to beat Drago.

He was lying completely dead,

down on the floor, he was vomiting.

He told me, "Vasi, I hate you."

I said, "Thanks, thanks a lot."

"That's special."

"If you hate me after a session, that's a good sign."

"Thank you."

♪ Come on, Daddy! Come on, Daddy! ♪

♪ Come on, Daddy! ♪

He just wanted to get the win

so his kids could see him win again.

I see 300 to go, I'm still five back.

That was like, "That's not so good."

"He's going to lose some speed now."

Mark Cavendish locked out of it, I'm afraid.

I turn left in the final, a few back.

I get nervous.

He's in the fifth, sixth wheel. He's trying to find a way.

The wind's coming from the right,

and I can pass Philipsen, but the line's coming.

I come at him, come at him.

I reckon if I dive left,

I'll get a bigger run because I'll get in the slipstream.

Go, go, Mark.

He sees a space, he's done it!

Mark Cavendish has done it! First win since 2018!

What about that? He is so pleased.

I am so pleased.

Whoo-hoo! Great race, man.

Congratulations, man.

You've done so much.

You've really done so much.

Good things come to those who wait.

And that was a mighty long wait.

Wow. He did it.

The winner is back.

I hadn't felt that for a while, like, you know.

He proved everybody wrong. We did our job.

And we did brilliantly.

It was just the Tour of Turkey.

Every race is important, but, you know,

I knew it wasn't the Tour de France.

There was no chance.

There was no chance of him going to the Tour.

They were giving him what he deserved as the greatest sprinter of all time,

which was the chance to go out

with a team that loved him, respected him, on his own terms.

It was never to have a shot at the Tour de France.

Patrick Lefevere has stated he's not taking him to the Tour,

and frankly, I don't know what that means for Mark Cavendish.

I was deflated then, you know.

In cycling, you never know what can happen.

There are a lot of crashes, there are a lot unexpected situations.

So I said, "Let's focus on the Tour de France,

we know that you're not going to do it,

but let's prepare as if you're going to do the Tour de France."

He said, "Just go out to Italy."

"You never know what happens."

There was no chance.

There was no chance of him going to the Tour.

I got a call from Peta, telling me, "Vasi, are you crazy?"

"Asking him to go away from his family again for no reason?"

"He's not going to do the Tour de France, Sam Bennett will."

We were like, "We're gonna have loads of time off now,

like, this is going to be fine."

Yeah, we were going to go away

and get to kind of come together and spend time with each other.

And then I said, "Peta, let him go."

I was out doing, like, a super-long ride.

And when I got in, I had a missed call from Head Sports Director.

Hello?

Sam Bennett had had a knee injury.

There was a big discussion, how we go to the Tour de France.

It was, like, 50-50, very much doubting Mark Cavendish.

Then I said, "I want Mark." "Yeah, but you're crazy."

I said, "No, I want Mark."

And, of course, at the end of the story, I'm the boss.

A bit speechless, like.

I was shocked.

I had a very good gut feeling.

Some things you can't explain.

You feel the ambition, you feel he wanted to race.

Champions, they are ready to do a lot of effort

to show the world, "I'm not done."

I built my whole career around this race.

Nothing changes to just be buzzing to be here.

It was such a pure joy that I had for him.

He got to go back to that race, back where he loved.

At the start of the season, nobody ever thought

that Mark Cavendish was going to the Tour de France.

It was out of the question.

He was a guy who couldn't finish a race for the last three years.

It's already, uh, more than a dream to be here.

Last minute call-up.

I have some self-belief, but even that, I wouldn't have believed.

Cav, he's been on top of the game forever.

I was teammates with him. That shows you how long it was.

That shows you how old he is.

Cavendish is 36 now.

I don't think it's going to happen. It would be an amazing story.

People like this.

The story of the...

the lost son

who has the chance to get back

on the biggest theater of the world in our sport.

If I wasn't able to win the Tour de France stage,

I don't think I'd be in the Tour.

That's right, boss, no?

Like, I mean...

Everything was good enough for me because I paid him peanuts.

So, who I am to ask somebody results if I pay him peanuts?

And I said, "I know this is really unfair what's happening."

"You are here in the Tour de France with this shit salary,

but I give you a bonus for every week you survive."

"And I give you a bonus for every stage you win."

I was nervous.

It's a different level to the rest of cycling.

It's really a different level.

I hadn't been there for a few years, so I didn't know what to expect.

I knew that he was strong enough to survive.

I knew that he would suffer like a dog every day.

But Mark's a big, big champ and a big warrior.

He's just going to win for his kids.

You know, Casper had never saw him winning.

I had all of the kids at home.

We were on the TV.

You got this.

The children are just over the moon and excited.

But regardless of anything that happened now,

whether he left after a week,

whether he won no stages, whether he whatever, it didn't matter

because he'd got to go back to that race.

The Tour de France is underway

and the first attacks are beginning.

The fight is on.

A fairytale return for Mark Cavendish.

Go on!

It started so fast.

Here, everybody's going for everything.

It was the Tour de France,

but a level up from where I'd left a few years ago.

I... I remember thinking to myself, like,

"What the fuck have I done here?"

"Oh, shit."

Oh, crash behind.

And I think that is a mass crash.

Really hectic right now

because there was a crash in the back of the peloton.

Another rider down.

Huge crash behind! Oh, that's carnage!

It's an absolute shocker.

This is exactly what we didn't want to happen

on the opening day of the Tour de France.

Wow! It is absolutely crazy here.

Yet another one! Sagan is down!

Awful crashes that have taken their toll on the race already.

We've got several riders very patched up here.

I just count myself lucky I didn't come down like some of the other guys.

This race.

We always talk about how dangerous the first week of the Tour is.

These guys go to bed every night

praying they're not gonna hit the deck in the first week.

They are going a lot faster.

Faster speeds than we've ever seen.

It's not often you see that.

Not often you see that little display of vulnerability.

He was racing against the fastest sprinters in the world.

Most of them are really young, and,

in the normal, he cannot beat them.

Last time I'd won at the Tour, I'd won in Fougères.

I spoke to my teammates about it,

and said, "The most important thing is to get into that final right-hander

near the front."

"Get me there and I'll do it."

My pick is Cavendish.

Are you kidding me? You have these man-crushes.

And they take over your life.

No, Quick-Step, no.

Absolutely not.

Well, we'll see.

That's an awful lot of not just damaged equipment,

but damaged bodies in this peloton.

I've never seen so many riders in bandages.

Another thing I've seen is Mark Cavendish, who's stopped.

He did something on his handlebar or his cleats.

Bit of trouble there for Mark Cavendish.

♪ Come on, Daddy! ♪

There had been a problem. He'd had a mechanical and dropped back.

And it was like, "Oh, shit."

So, we've got a breakaway.

Don't be surprised about this rider disappearing

up the road and causing the peloton a huge problem.

A breakaway is when a rider breaks away from the main peloton

and goes off on their own out at the front of the race.

This is the time trial of his life.

It's going to be tight. The stage win is still possible.

And you've got a group behind of 100-plus riders

that are chasing you down.

I was looking at the times and working it out

and thinking, "They're leaving it very late."

"That is going to need a big pull to be on the front."

Mom, I don't know...

Julian was in green, and I remember him just going on the front

and just pulling.

Just pulling with no thought other than catching the break.

Mark Cavendish in the burn seat, just for the time being.

Where is he? Yes.

What a night this is for Brent van Moer. Can he hold on?

They're hunting him down. They're coming!

Mark's in the middle of all of that. Daddy's blocked in.

Look at this. 350 meters to go!

Can he be caught? It's going to be tight!

Oh, no, he's boxed in, he's boxed in.

He's in the middle of it.

Come on!

- Go! - Come on!

There goes Mark Cavendish!

And here comes Mark Cavendish!

Let's do it!

He can possibly get there.

Oh, my God, oh, my God.

Mark Cavendish is going to do it. He's done it!

Daddy did it!

- Yes! - Daddy did it!

That is unbelievable

in so many ways!

He did it!

Everything that we'd been through those last few years,

that holding on, that believing,

just all came out in one go.

All I want to do is just see my boys, you know.

That's all I want to do.

Just nice to share this with them.

Fucking hell, Mark. You are so fucking fast.

To me, that was the biggest comeback. It's a dream.

Even now I'm getting emotional because...

it was just something unbelievable,

what happened right then.

And I was so proud.

You know, being part of it.

It takes a lot for me to sit there and go, "Did I..."

"I don't think I witnessed what I witnessed."

I'm shocked.

And at the same time, I'm so proud of him

and happy for him.

Just to see what he's been through.

A lot of self-doubt, a lot of depression.

Um... I don't like being wrong,

but for this time, I'm really glad I was wrong.

I think it was like a fairytale, huh?

Somebody who was lost, given up by everybody.

It's like a dream.

What are you doing to me?

I was near to a heart attack.

And then, taking his chance.

Thank you, man.

You thank me already with what you did.

And then winning.

Thank you for believing, for making me happy.

The whole year, I'm just happy again.

People don't believe in miracles, me neither.

But we did it, and all the rest, fuck them.

For he's a jolly good fellow

Cav is back.

Today, he won his 31st stage,

only three behind the greatest of all time, Eddy Merckx.

Really, really happy for him because, well, I told you.

Cavendish perfectly placed.

Daddy's led out.

Do it!

You can do it.

I miss him.

Mark Cavendish shakes two fists at the sky.

Dude...

speechless.

Mark, it's your 32nd victory.

You know what my question is going to be.

- Don't say the name. - I didn't say it.

I'm not thinking about anything.

He knew he could beat all of them.

Yeah, once he starts winning, he just can't stop.

Cavendish in a near-perfect position here for win number 33.

When's he going to light it up?

The line belongs to him!

Thirty-three. Eddy, are you watching?

I didn't ask you the question.

Thank you.

Daddy, Daddy!

Are we going to see Eddy Merckx's record

matched by Mark Cavendish?

Cavendish, the Manx Missile, is he going to match Merckx?

He's done it!

Thirty-four stage wins!

We made history!

We made history!

Unbelievable.

Now he has tied the record.

I never thought this would happen.

But I'm psyched for him.

And I'm done.

I'm done bashing on Mark Cavendish. I promise.

Yeah. Just...

I was in tears. The joy.

Just the...

Oh, the emotion and joy that he got out of that.

That's huge. Huge, yeah.

Something that we'd spoken about in the darkest of his times.

I know how far he has come.

Yeah.

Having to be broken and rebuild yourself,

I think it definitely made him

remember why he sacrifices what he sacrifices.

Mark, can I ask you the question?

What's it like to be the equal of Eddy Merckx?

It really brought a human side

to what I do for the first point in my career, really.

It made me realize

I didn't win it alone.

I wish I knew that.

I could go back and do my career again knowing that, you know.

This is how it was always supposed to be.

We're so proud of you, Daddy.

How sick would it be,

he's at 34,

coming into Paris, and he's still in the race,

and that's the day to break the record?

You can't script that.

- You cannot script that. - Yeah.

You all right?

- Hi. - Can I give Daddy these?

- Look who it is! - Hello!

Hello, Dad!

Hi, Dad!

Daddy, you got me a present.

Hello.

Daddy, have you got me my new green jersey?

Daddy, what's that noise?

Daddy's going to do his race. We'll see him at the finish.

- Love you! - Good luck, Daddy!

We're here now, just coming through on to the 1 km flag.

This is the Champs-Élysées.

The most beautiful finish to any bike race in the world.

I was very fortunate to do that with that man,

Mark Cavendish, who's going for number five today.

It's magic. Magic.

This is going to be my last transmission.

I love it. I love this sport.

I'll hand you back to the commentary team. And come on, Mark!

Three weeks of racing in France, and it all comes down to this.

700 meters to go!

Onto the cobbles on the Champs-Élysées.

Cavendish battling for space. It's getting tight!

Cavendish, he's boxed in.

Bernal takes it. Frustration for Cavendish.

Not to be in the end for Mark Cavendish,

but, boy, can he be proud of the last three weeks in France.

Equaling the Merckx's record and taking the green jersey,

fully a decade after he last claimed it.

No one has ever done that before.

There's no number that's enough.

But I've got the most incredible family...

You all right, mate?

With that alone, my life is perfect.

Daddy, did you win?

Daddy!

- Daddy! - One minute.

What you doing?

Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!

- Daddy? - Casper, just give him a minute.

I'll continue trying to win for as long as I believe I can win.

Good morning from Austria with Bernie Eisel.