"It happens in all sports" - Mark Cavendish on doping and Lance Armstrong

Mark Cavendish is a rider that has spent multiple generations in the peloton and has become one of cycling's most successful riders ever, now holding the Tour de France stage win record. In a recent interview he was asked about doping quite a lot, as the Manx Missile is a rider that has bridged across from the years of Lance Armstrong to the modern peloton and a lot has changed in his eyes.

"Normally, you take a couple of months off and you recover from. Mine was a bit misdiagnosed, and it ended up putting me on my knees for a couple of years," Cavendish said of his Epstein-Barr virus diagnosis in an interview with talkSPORT. As Cavendish hunted for the Tour win record a few years ago, an illness came in the way and threatened to end his career in a premature way. On several occasions his future seemed unclear, but in 2023 he signed with the Astana team in search of that big win. He announced his retirement at the Giro d'Italia but then went back on his word and renewed for another season where he finally achieved that mythical triumph.

However even his career, which had a fairytale ending, can't be considered a good one all round because illnesses and injuries also marked it. "I think any sportsperson, if you can't do your sport at a high level, that's your life, it's how you make your living, it's everything you are as a person, if you can't do that, it's not going to be easy. I'm lucky I had a supportive family and network around me".

This was referring to his 2020 season, where after a lackluster year with Bahrain - Victorious, he didn't know what would be of his future. "The hard thing then was getting a job, I couldn't get a job after that, I had done everything I'd done, and there's people who had never won a bike race, and likely never win a bike race, get a job before me, who had won all these bike races, because I had been sick". He was eventually signed by Soudal - Quick-Step where he made a glorious return to the Tour.

The Briton was asked about doping, a relevant topic this week as Oier Lazkano was only one day ago suspended for irregularities in his biological passport. Doping isn't gone from the sport. "I think so, yeah. We'll never get away from our past as a sport, but cycling puts the time, effort and money into combat doping. There'll still be people who are caught for cheating and stuff like that."

Asked about Lance Armstrong, whom he is now friends with, the reply is rather ambiguous. "Yeah, he was [an idol] growing up. Lance was very good to me when I was young. I think obviously Lance gained a lot more than anyone else from the sport. So likewise, he lost a lot more than anyone else in the sport."

However Cavendish believes it is inevitable, due to the money, power and success that can be gained through the sport - or any other: "It's not saying, 'I'm a cheat, so I'm going to be a cyclist'. That's not how it works. It happens in all sports. It happens in entertainment, business, anywhere there's money we gain, people will cheat. If you put the time, the effort, the money into catching a cheat, you will do it; that's what cycling did on a big level."

However, he believes that the situation has improved quite a lot, and that there is much less abuse of the rules in the current peloton then there was when he first started out as a pro. "I tell you, I could not have done what I did in the sport if cycling was how it was in the past," he says. "Twenty years later, I'm answering questions about it, which will always be the case. But it's actually nice to be able to talk about how I see it and how I've experienced it."

"I know that, fundamentally, I believe I've raced in one of, if not the, cleanest sport in the world because they do the stuff to combat doping".