This is Why Mark Cavendish is the GOAT Sprinter │ Short Documentary

Mark Cavendish is gonna burst for the line The Manx-missile is back! Just look at this, this is the man they call the  Max Missile, the fastest man in the world what a  delivery by Mark Cavendish, this man is unstoppable,  he came past the rest with unbelievable acceleration Unbelievable stuff! Mark Cavendish When he sees the finish he is absolutely  impossible to beat. Mark Cavendish gets his 13th victory in the Tour de France He's just an unbelievable finisher, the fastest sprinter on the plan

et Mark Cavendish has cemented himself as the greatest sprinter of all time following his miraculous comeback last year at the age of 36, he became cycling weekly's rider of the year and in the eyes of many he's become an icon  of the sport his resume lacks little, and  includes more than 150 professional wins, a third of those are grand tour stages the Manx missile was born to sprint a pure sprinter who is equipped with fast  twitch muscle fibers allowing him to accelerate instantaneously with

explosive power, and reach  top speeds of nearly 80 kilometres per hour growing up in the Isle of Man, Mark developed a  passion for speed, but his speed is just one of the many keys to his success over 70 percent  of the sprinter's work goes into fighting drag that's where aerodynamics come into play professional teams spend so much time effort  and money studying their riders positions on the bike looking for ways to improve them.  However, using an aero position in a sprint comes with a cost,

for most riders this is  not a comfortable position for sprinting because it lowers the maximum power  that can be generated this explains why many sprinters prefer more comfortable  flexible and less aerodynamic positions maintaining such a low profile while sprinting is  hard, but for a short guy like cavendish it's his natural sprinting position he makes no effort  to maintain it Mark Cavendish is being challenged by Robbie McEwen, but htis is the new Robbie McEwen pure sprinters, and there

aren't many, and i think he  he took it to another level one of the big things about that makes Cav so successful his actual body shape and the way he's positioned  on the bike makes him so incredibly aerodynamic he's got pretty short legs and and short little  arms and it just puts him into this aerodynamic position without having to sort of contort his  body to try and get down and get aerodynamic just by reaching down into the drops, makes  him look like a time trial helmet on a bike his smal

l size allows him to get the most out  of slipstreaming others while they hardly get any drafting advantage out of riding on his wheel Caleb Ewan adopted a similar posture and took it to the extreme it proved to be very effective  giving him a 15% advantage in terms of speed compared to standard sprinting positions. Because  these two riders are super aero and comfortable at the same time they are able to compensate the  gap in power against much more powerful peers he doesn't need to put out th

e same sort of power  as someone like Greipel for instance who's for the cycling people he's putting  out something like 1800 watts or Kittel who's putting out 1800 or 1900 watts. Cav can go the  same speed by putting out 1350 Even for the casual viewer his sprinting style is noticeably  different from the rest it's not just his smooth and perfectly circular pedaling but also the way  his core stays centered his head is barely moving like a sprinting cheetah limiting the amount  of air disturban

ce around him and keeping air resistance at a low. But that doesn't mean his body  is inflexible during the sprint and while he's having a tight grip on the handlebars his elbows  are freely moving swinging his bike left and right in what he calls 'bringing the bike to the feet'  in order to achieve maximum sprinting efficiency on an ideal day, Cavendish would have a  number of teammates do the work for him as the race approaches the finish. It's called a  lead out train, their job is to keep th

e race under their control and carry Mark to the 200 meters to  go marker. When the train is lined up each rider is doing nearly 40 percent less effort than the rider  in front of him, by sitting at the back Cavendish can travel at the same speed as the rider at  the front while barely pedaling. He doesn't necessarily need a team around him in order  to get a win but it makes his job a lot easier Cavendish is a man who calculates every detail in  his head, like anyone who is obsessive-compulsive

he wants everything to be perfect. In an old  interview Mark said: it's not just about my frontal area in a sprint, it's everything beforehand, how  i ride in the peloton, my pedaling action, how I sit, I save so much energy for the finish. Mark  does very minimal effort throughout the day when there's a possible sprint at the  end of the stage he doesn't put 100 effort into the intermediate sprints even if the  two sprints are hours apart at the end of the race he knows exactly how deep he can

go and he's not  only good at managing effort throughout the race he also excels at managing his efforts  throughout the final sprint as well when he's fresh he could pull off an 18 second  sprint while an exhausted Cavendish might prefer jumping on the wheels of other sprinters and  launch the sprint a few seconds later the length of the sprint depends on that and also depends  on the wind direction and steepness of the road these variables make each and every sprint  different. Going for long

distances requires a wise distribution of effort, and as he once said:  it's not about your absolute maximum wattage it's about how long you can hold that high wattage  for the whole sprint. Given the uniqueness of each finish there is no set range from which you  always open up the sprint knowing exactly when to attack is one of Cavendish's greatest weapons it's  impressive how he times his sprint to perfection when the finish line is within sight riders can  easily misjudge distance as nervou

sness takes over a common mistake is to go for a long way out  which could work in your opponents' favor the most likely result is a defeat Unless it's tailwind Cavendish decides to light it, he's gonna go long here comes Cavendish, his head down, he's running for the line maybe Viviani has to battle and go for minor places here, but is it gonna be Mark Cavendish as he heads for the line oh the right jersey makes it in the lead in this sprint Cannondale the team in  green were counting on their

lead-out train to deliver their man to the 200  meters point. But Cavendish decides to open up the sprint from 350 meters out  surprising everybody with a very early jump when everybody started accelerating he had  already picked up momentum and was on a par with them in terms of position had he waited  till the 200 meters marker to launch his sprint winning would have been impossible. He was able  to cover that distance in 15 seconds that's a very long range but thanks to the tailwinds and  the

surprise factor he managed to pull it off in some rare situations Mark prefers  not to sprint in the center of the road specifically when he finds himself at the  front of the pack with a long way to go after getting delivered by a lead out. He launches  the sprint from the center of the road then goes sideways with a closer look you'll notice a  number of riders sitting on his slipstream once he switches lanes they follow which  creates an overcrowded area that causes a bunch of his opponents

to get boxed in they  eventually miss out on the sprint. In other words he just brings a random portion of riders that  may threaten his chances of winning to a halt however he has received a ton of criticism  in the past for this aggressive style switching lanes and improvising in mid-sprint  are also some of the actions he tends to take when he's badly positioned or when he  realizes he might have gone too early he is very good at picking wheels  that have the best potential he looks left and

right searching for sweet  spots for riders to use as shelter from the wind when he spots one he goes for it sits  on the slipstream to take a breath and relaunches the sprint shortly afterwards Viviani being dropped a little bit too far back 300 meters to go.  300 meters to go now it looks like Alexander Kristoff on the left hand to the center of  your screen sat in the saddle powering along he opens up his sprint now Mark Cavendish is on  the wheel of Alexander Kristoff, Viviani on the left-ha

nd side Kristoff goes Cavendish in the middle, Cavendish in the middle Cavendish takes it what a victory for the Manxman  wow what a sprint that was! it's now or never time, the bells have rang and this is the time you've got to go or just pack up and go home Cav gets himself into position Haussler is there oh my life a millimetre could decide a 300 kilometre race, such cases are  not uncommon in professional cycling the bike throw may not be Cavendish's most  powerful weapon but it is there whe

never he needs it and it's something  that every cyclist should master it's a technique that allows the rider to have  an edge over his opponents at the finish line if executed perfectly over 30 centimeters or  the equivalent of one foot could be gained you can perform a bike through by stretching  the back out extending the arms and legs forward and thrusting the bike across the line with  force to move the bike as far forward as possible can you talk about its mentality perhaps how he differs

to other riders his particular type of character when he focuses on something, he's almost scary I always wanted to be the best,  I still want to be the best, I still believe I'm the best I've never looked back on what  I've done even before i was cycling you know when I achieve something, I set a goal that I want  to achieve. The day after I achieved it I set a new goal you know that's always how it  was and that's how it'll continued to be you know self-confidence is commonly defined as the  s

ureness of feeling that you are equal to the task at hand this sureness is characterized by absolute  belief in ability in the case of Mark Cavendish his confidence is reflected in everything he  says and does it is reflected in his ability to bounce back from failures and it can be seen  in his charisma and aggressive style on the bike sprinters have to be an extroverting character  because of the explosive nature of the side of the sport that they practice they have to appear  brash they have

to appear outgoing they have to be confident they're like boxers  you know you don't get into the ring and say yeah well i'm going to do my best today i'll see how it goes  you gotta get in there and saying I'm gonna win I want to kill this guy I want to knock him to  the ground and that's what a sprinter has to do a sprinter has to have that character otherwise he's  gonna finish second he's gonna finish third and sometimes that comes out as  being cocky and cheeky and brash but actually deep d

own Mark Cavendish  is a pretty cool character his career is full of ups and downs we couldn't  count how many times he crashed or how many bones he's broken throughout the years his mental  strength and immunity against fear is exceptional and he's never hesitant to go back  to the danger zone and do it again cavendish's downfall began in 2017 after he  was diagnosed with the epstein-barr virus it prevented him from performing at  the highest levels for over two years in that period he went thr

ough  numerous bad experiences nothing seemed to be going his way his inability  to compete consistently was starting to take its toll on his mental health something that  led many cyclists before him to retire it was downright depressing for one  who once was cycling's undisputed sprint king Mark Cavendish I can see it, it was a really hard hard day for you I see you're getting emotional how how was your  day that's perhaps the last race in my career now do you really think this is your last ra

ce? maybe yeah did you want to show something? but there's one thing that sets successful  people like Cavendish apart from the rest he is not a quitter