Mark Cavendish, clearly not sated by his six stage wins in this year's Tour de France, returned to the top of the podium when he defeated local hero and former Columbia colleague Gerald Ciolek to win the prestigious Sparkassen Giro.
At the climax of a demanding one-day 177-kilometre stage race held in the city of Bochum, Cavendish produced his trademark late surge to to claim the 20th win of a remarkable season and his 48th career win as a professional in under three years.
"It's an impressive result for Mark," said Rolf Aldag, the Columbia directeur sportif.
"He had a tough Tour de France and he's been winning all season, but the victories just keep coming. And this was not an easy race at all.
"It was held on a tough little circuit, with two short but hard climbs and then a fast descent to the finish, and on top of that it was raining most of the day. A break of five guys got away but in the last lap and a half we managed to bring things back together for Cavendish. He seems to be totally unbeatable in the sprints right now."
With resources stretched at the end of a long season Columbia fielded just five riders which Aldag said had forced the team to race defensively. Even so, they covered all the attacks, and kept control of the race for Cavendish.
"It's really impressive when you consider we've just come out of a really successful Tour and all of the riders who took part for us in this race had taken part in the Tour. Some guys just lose their way a little if they've done well there, but not Mark and not our team. So even if it's not a huge surprise when Cav wins a sprint, this victory shows he's still focused and concentrating on winning."
Among other things Cavendish, who would be well entitled to finish a historic and tiring season early, must soon decide whether he feels strong enough and motivated enough to keep going another six or seven weeks to contest the World Championships for Britain in Switzerland at the end of next month.
The course in Mandrisio is far from flat but Cavendish has shown signs this season of being able to take such tough terrain in his stride, certainly in one-off races with a team willing to work for him. And even if the course is not ideally suited the British team want to get him involved again in the national set up as opposed to the British based Sky Pro-Tour team next season.
With definite World Championship shots in Australia and Denmark in the next two seasons and a flattish Olympic course expected in London 2012 now could be a good time to start building that national team around such a proven winner.
No comments:
Post a Comment