"I never wanted him to sit at home and wonder if he could have done it" Peta Todd, Mark Cavendish's wife, talks to Daniel about what this record breaking win means and the sacrifices their family have made this year 🙌🇮🇲 #TDF2024
"Clearly he was good enough to win another stage at the Tour de France" - Mark Cavendish shakes off the doubters with a dominant sprint in Saint Vulbas
CyclingThursday, 04 July 2024 at 05:30
He's done it. Mark Cavendish is the sole name on top of the historical leaderboard of Tour de France stage wins. His wife Peta Todd is happy there won't be any 'what ifs' and that her husband can finally wrap the career at the end of the season without any regrets.
"When Mark decided to do another year, we all knew that it meant it was all-in," Todd tells ITV Cycling after the stage. "And he's never not all-in. So to have a conversation that we were gonna be all-in, we knew it was gonna be a lot."
This meant Cavendish had to train even harder than before to make sure that he doesn't "only come close to winning" again. "We haven't seen him a lot this year, even less than usual. He's been at camps and basically Vasilis (Cavendish's coach, ed.) has been married to him instead of me (laughs)."
But all of the hard work paid off and any result that comes the Manxman's way in the next two weeks will be just a bonus. "I'm so so pleased for him because one thing I wanted for him - I never wanted him to end with a 'what if'... to come out of the Tour like he did last year after coming so close. I never wanted it to be another sad story of the Tour, because ultimately Tour de France is his ultimate love affair."
"I never wanted him to sit at home in 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 20 years and be like: 'I wonder if I could've gone back and still done it'. If he'd come back this year after throwing everything at it and it hadn't worked, then he wasn't good enough to win a stage at Tour de France anymore. Because noone deserves to win another stage at the Tour - you have to earn it. And we believed it. He believed it. You saw his team out there... they believed in it. And clearly he was good enough to win another stage at the Tour de France," she concludes smiling.
Read also
claps 0visitors 870
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Nov 05, 13:04
0
Five world tour debutants to watch next season
Dec 23, 10:00
0
Popular news
Latest comments
- Most of these have nothing to do with rider safety or are completely unachievablevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Depends on how fast the Cipressa would be beforehand and in what condition Philipsen would bevappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Some things sound crazy until they aren't, what if he's actually right? 🤷vappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- Why make a comment to state the obvious? Of course MvdP is much better at CX than Pogacar, does anyone doubt that But that wasn't his pointvappaxbipmv23-12-2024
- If you look at road alone obvi Pogacar is the better rider. But maybe MVDP is the better overall rider since he can win in three plus disciplines?mobk23-12-2024
- Correction on 2021 Olympics. It was mainly the Dutch ladies who didn’t know who was leading the race. Other teams like the Germans and Italians knew that Kiesenhofer was out front.mobk23-12-2024
- A champion turning into a sore loser. Or is he on coke again?
UltimateOpportunist23-12-2024 - If you look at the major races they’ve both been in, van der Poel had the early edge as lately Pogacar has had the advantage. It’s all on procyclingstats.RidesHills23-12-2024
- I wouldn’t assume Tadej can’t win at cross. He did a cross race, not a World Cup, a few years ago and crushed the field. It was a minor race. But he can win anywhere.mij23-12-2024
- I wonder what would happen if Pogacar attacked on the Cipressa instead of the Poggio in San Remo? Would MvdPoel still be able to follow?Ride197423-12-2024