Cavendish eager to slip into green jersey

Published on Wednesday 30 June 2010 19:15

ON ten occasions in his four-year career, Mark Cavendish has celebrated a Tour de France stage win. Now, 12 months after completing the Tour for the first time with victory on the Champs Elysees, Cavendish is aiming for the green jersey awarded to the points classification champion.

The 25-year-old from the Isle of Man will put all of his energies into the event's sprint stages - of which there are a probable six and up to a possible nine depending on how the race unfolds - aiming to win as many as he can. While Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) will bid for the overall title, climbing mountains with two-time champion and 2010 favourite Alberto Contador, Cavendish will be merely surviving the gruelling ascents to preserve his bid for the maillot vert.

Like Contador, Cavendish is the favourite, but he has endured a difficult period - the toughest of his career - since finishing 10 points behind Thor Hushovd in the 2009 Tour.

"All the time it's always been about moving up the ladder," said Cavendish of his career to date. "Now I'm at the top all I can do is fall. It was hard as a neo-professional, but I only had everything to prove, I could only go upwards.

"Now there's everyone trying to pull me back. It's quite hard to shake them off."

Cavendish will begin his bid for the green jersey in Rotterdam on Saturday, aiming for his biggest reward as a cyclist on 25 July in Paris.

It would end a period which saw him split from his childhood sweetheart, his close friend Jonny Bellis fighting for his life following a motor scooter accident, the imprisonment of his brother for drugs-related offences and the death of his grandmother. On the bike things have been far from straightforward too.

Cavendish had a tooth abscess removed, only to pick up an infection after returning to training too soon, delaying his start to the season.

The HTC-Columbia sprinter was then withdrawn from the Tour de Romandie by his team after celebrating his second win of the season with a two-fingered salute before he was involved in the biggest crash of his career during the Tour de Suisse.