:00:00. > :00:14.Welcome to HARDtalk. Over the past five years, my guest has enjoyed the
:00:15. > :00:20.reputation of being the fastest man on two wheels. Mark Cavendish is a
:00:21. > :00:23.cycling phenomenon, an explosive sprinter, a world champion, and the
:00:24. > :00:32.winner of more Tour de France stages than any other Briton. He also has
:00:33. > :00:39.the reputation for blunt talk in a sport tainted by illegal drug use.
:00:40. > :00:57.Has cycling cleaned up its act and thrown out the cheats?
:00:58. > :01:03.Mark Cavendish, welcome to HARDtalk. What has been more important for
:01:04. > :01:14.your cycling career, strength of body or strength of mind? Strength
:01:15. > :01:22.of mind. If you look at lab tests, growing up, it was my will to win
:01:23. > :01:31.that got me through. Cycling, kept me riding. It's not even a debatable
:01:32. > :01:33.subject. You say will to win. Explain to me how deep that sort of
:01:34. > :01:42.competitiveness, the winning mentality, runs. For as long as I
:01:43. > :01:49.can remember. It was not enough to be the best that I could be. When
:01:50. > :01:53.people tell you to be your best, that was not enough. I wanted to be
:01:54. > :01:56.the best of everyone. Whether it was a spelling test, or general
:01:57. > :02:04.knowledge quiz, I had to win at everything. I did not always win,
:02:05. > :02:11.obviously. But my mentality was that I was going out to win. That is a
:02:12. > :02:14.bit of a contradiction. You say that you were not the strongest, maybe
:02:15. > :02:17.you were not even physically built to be the best, you have commented
:02:18. > :02:19.about your own short legs compared to some of your rivals, that
:02:20. > :02:22.physically your body was not naturally built for cycling,
:02:23. > :02:33.therefore, arguably it is more difficult to win. Why did you
:02:34. > :02:39.embrace cycling? I kind of talk generally that I'm not good at
:02:40. > :02:46.cycling. Sprinting, I am very good. My shortness helps me. To get into
:02:47. > :02:50.the sprint. I would be suited to sprinting on the track. But it is
:02:51. > :03:01.kind of like a different sport to what I do. For me, the nice sprint
:03:02. > :03:04.at the end of 200 kilometres... You have done the endurance, you have
:03:05. > :03:10.survived climbs, you have gone 250 kilometres, then you have to go to
:03:11. > :03:18.another level. I'm not good at getting over the mountains. But it
:03:19. > :03:31.is not so hard that I physically cannot do it, I just suffer more.
:03:32. > :03:36.You have to push it to limits. That is what I can do. But it is worth
:03:37. > :03:39.it. It is always nice to win. We will talk more about the way that
:03:40. > :03:42.your career and life is gone, getting inside your head, and you
:03:43. > :03:49.use this word, suffer, and suffering. There is something very
:03:50. > :03:53.particular about cycling. You captured it. When you said of the
:03:54. > :03:56.Tour de France, it is like somebody torturing you, except you are doing
:03:57. > :04:05.it to yourself, and the person who can take it longest wins.
:04:06. > :04:12.Physiologically, I cannot win the Tour de France. My muscle
:04:13. > :04:16.composition is for sprinting. It is not for going across mountains. I
:04:17. > :04:20.can have a high output of power for a short amount of time, kind of
:04:21. > :04:25.medium power, I can hold it on the redline. I can go very anaerobic,
:04:26. > :04:36.but I cannot go the line between anaerobic and aerobic. That means
:04:37. > :04:42.you will never be the outright winner, but you have won 25 stages.
:04:43. > :04:49.You have also won the overall points classification which goes to the
:04:50. > :04:54.best sprinter. The more consistent rider. So getting back to this idea
:04:55. > :04:57.that you have triumphed in an event which you say yourself represents an
:04:58. > :05:00.extraordinary form of torture, I just wonder how year after year,
:05:01. > :05:12.after year, you find it within yourself to go back to that. I love
:05:13. > :05:16.it. It may be a bit sadistic but I love it. The emotional rollercoaster
:05:17. > :05:20.that you get is as great as that feeling, not ecstasy, but the
:05:21. > :05:22.feeling of joy you get when you know that you have pushed yourself and
:05:23. > :05:37.you have got success from doing that. We race 100 days a year. There
:05:38. > :05:42.are two other grand tours. There are also week-long stage races and
:05:43. > :05:48.single day races. The Tour de France, for me, is the pinnacle.
:05:49. > :05:52.What is also intriguing about it, and your form of road racing, it is
:05:53. > :05:55.a mix of highly individualistic and a very lonely place to be, you and
:05:56. > :06:02.your bike, enduring the pain, but also it is built on teams and team
:06:03. > :06:10.work. You cannot win without having the support of your team. Are you a
:06:11. > :06:16.selfish sportsman? Not at all. Quite the opposite. I need the team to
:06:17. > :06:23.win. Some guys do not need a team to win. I cannot compare it to any
:06:24. > :06:27.other sport. You ride in a team, yet there is only one guy who crosses
:06:28. > :06:32.the line. A striker scores the only goal of the match but his whole team
:06:33. > :06:38.wins. We do win as a team, but there is only one rider who goes on the
:06:39. > :06:46.podium. Only one rider gets the glory. Do you want the glory? You
:06:47. > :06:50.have to look at it like this. Any professional sport is
:06:51. > :06:58.commercialised. It is sponsors, people paying money to have their
:06:59. > :07:02.brand advertised. In cycling, the name of the team is the name of the
:07:03. > :07:05.sponsor. So technically we are moving billboards. And the best way
:07:06. > :07:11.to display the sponsor's logo is across the line with your hands in
:07:12. > :07:16.the air. There are nine guys on the team in Tour de France. On a sprint
:07:17. > :07:21.day, it is not like anybody can go and win. We have to find the most
:07:22. > :07:32.efficient way to display our sponsor's logo. We are getting nine
:07:33. > :07:36.guys. That is very cynical. It is a way to put it, so it is not a load
:07:37. > :07:40.of guys, why would they work for them? It's like building a kit car.
:07:41. > :07:43.A lot of pieces go together in a certain way. You are not going to
:07:44. > :07:50.stick the cylinders where the brake pedal goes. It does not go like
:07:51. > :07:53.that. So you put an engine together, a car together, and the bit that
:07:54. > :08:02.makes the noise is the bit that makes the noise. You say you
:08:03. > :08:06.understand the importance of the team, but it is fair to say, that in
:08:07. > :08:11.your career, you have not always found it easy. These are the words
:08:12. > :08:14.of David Brailsford, who was a cycling guru for the British Olympic
:08:15. > :08:18.team, and you have worked closely with him, he says that Mark's
:08:19. > :08:26.general view on life is that he knows better than anybody else about
:08:27. > :08:31.everything. You are a kind of a difficult guy to work with. He says
:08:32. > :08:38.that with a smile on his face. I have known him for many years. We
:08:39. > :08:44.have a good relationship. I am not afraid to put my point across.
:08:45. > :08:50.Cyclists, especially the guys that he works with, a lot of them, they
:08:51. > :08:57.are silent. They are not interested in pushing boundaries. They are
:08:58. > :09:02.there to win. They do not pipe up if things are good. They do not pipe up
:09:03. > :09:06.when things are bad, they moan to each other. They do not necessarily
:09:07. > :09:11.pipe up to improve things. I am critical of things that do not work.
:09:12. > :09:14.But I find a solution. There are mechanics who will tell you that I
:09:15. > :09:18.am the only rider who will ever sit there two hours with a mechanic and
:09:19. > :09:24.go through a bike to make sure that everything is working well. I'm the
:09:25. > :09:27.first person to heap praise as well. They are quick to be critical of
:09:28. > :09:37.things, when things go right, they take it for granted. I also offer a
:09:38. > :09:41.solution when I criticise. It is at its most brutal in the sprint
:09:42. > :09:44.finish, when you have one dozen or more sprinters, who have trained for
:09:45. > :09:50.this moment at the end of a long stage, and you are all coming for
:09:51. > :09:52.the line. There, to the outside observer, it looks like chaos, it
:09:53. > :10:02.looks extraordinarily dangerous and highly aggressive. How far are you
:10:03. > :10:06.prepared to push it? Sorry to blow the kind of romance out of the
:10:07. > :10:12.sprint, a lot of guys do get aggressive. I am small, I cannot be
:10:13. > :10:19.aggressive. What am I going to be aggressive against, a guy who is six
:10:20. > :10:24.foot four? I am nearly a stone less than the other guys. What will I
:10:25. > :10:31.gain? I have to look for spaces, not for people. It blows the romance out
:10:32. > :10:37.of sprinting, but I'm kind of... The adrenaline is not there. All the
:10:38. > :10:42.emotion has gone. I am aware of everything, everyone and everything.
:10:43. > :10:49.Trying to find the gaps that go through. You stress the rationality
:10:50. > :10:52.of it as you see it unfold. Why is that among aficionados of the Tour,
:10:53. > :11:00.you have got a reputation for pushing the envelope to the very
:11:01. > :11:03.edge? There was a time last year when a couple of fans, it seems,
:11:04. > :11:07.took against the way that you had ridden and your style so much, that
:11:08. > :11:20.one of them threw a bottle of urine at you during the race. You said, I
:11:21. > :11:25.was not angry, I was depressed. I love cycling. I liked that you could
:11:26. > :11:30.get in among it, whether you are a fan or a journalist, you can talk to
:11:31. > :11:35.the athlete straightaway. It is not an arena like tennis or football or
:11:36. > :11:39.athletics, where you are isolated. You are part of the surrounds, part
:11:40. > :11:45.of the sport. People will always find things to hate or love, does
:11:46. > :11:48.not matter who you are. If you are somebody who expresses their
:11:49. > :11:54.opinion, people will love it, some people will say, he talks too much.
:11:55. > :11:57.If you straighten up, a person who has had media training, some people
:11:58. > :12:00.will say that he is a good inspiration to the children, other
:12:01. > :12:09.people will say, I do not like it, he is too bland. People love to take
:12:10. > :12:12.the negative comments about people, in the gossipy world that we live
:12:13. > :12:25.in, where news is not news, people are blogging, they can come out with
:12:26. > :12:34.anything and people believe it. There is a level of strong opinion.
:12:35. > :12:38.It is the damage done to your sport by years and years of revelations
:12:39. > :12:41.about doping. I wonder to what extent you feel that your sport is
:12:42. > :12:49.tainted by the cheating that we have seen? It has been tainted. I cannot
:12:50. > :12:55.do one interview without being asked about doping. It is frustrating.
:12:56. > :12:59.That is entirely reasonable, given the figures. Since 1998, more than a
:13:00. > :13:05.third of the top finishers have admitted doping or have faced
:13:06. > :13:13.official links to doping. That is misleading. From 1998 to the
:13:14. > :13:18.present. That is 15 years. A third of that could have been all of them
:13:19. > :13:22.in the first five years. That could have been all the riders then, and
:13:23. > :13:27.that leaves the next ten years. That is a misleading statement. Are you
:13:28. > :13:31.suggesting that you are confident that the sort of scale of doping we
:13:32. > :13:37.saw in the late 90s simply is not happening any more? Absolutely. One,
:13:38. > :13:40.I would not be winning bike races. Two, the amount of testing there is
:13:41. > :13:50.now, it has been stepped up, if you cheat, you will be caught. And the
:13:51. > :13:59.thing is... If you are still cheating. The last three guys on the
:14:00. > :14:08.Tour of Italy. And they get caught. It is like a kid, growing up, eight
:14:09. > :14:11.years old. They take a chocolate bar from a store and walk out. They go
:14:12. > :14:17.to school the next day, they steal lunch money. Then they are in exams,
:14:18. > :14:22.they are looking over their shoulder. That kid is a cheat. He is
:14:23. > :14:26.a cheat, he is going to be a cyclist. It does not work like that.
:14:27. > :14:28.There will be cheaters in every aspect of life, in business, in
:14:29. > :14:35.entertainment, anywhere where there is financial gain, they will keep
:14:36. > :14:42.cheating. If you put the time and effort into catching them, you can
:14:43. > :14:46.catch them. I tell you what cycling did in the past, it did not do the
:14:47. > :14:58.testing, and if it did, it caught people. Then they say it will damage
:14:59. > :15:02.the image of our sport so we will ignore it. That is not the only
:15:03. > :15:06.sport that has ever done that. In ten years if you will see it in
:15:07. > :15:09.other sports. I take the point but let's stick to cycling. You began
:15:10. > :15:12.your rise to the top of elite cycling at the very time that Lance
:15:13. > :15:23.Armstrong was finishing his extraordinary run of victories.
:15:24. > :15:28.There were other people who were cheating with drugs. As a young man
:15:29. > :15:31.entering this elite level, did you realise that a lot of your rivals
:15:32. > :15:41.you were cycling against were cheating? No. I started after
:15:42. > :15:50.Armstrong retired. My first year as a professional, I won races but I
:15:51. > :15:58.was way out of my depth. It was hard. 2008, things came about...
:15:59. > :16:09.Like the revelations from the 1990s. In 2008, the peloton was slower. It
:16:10. > :16:13.got slower and then you noticed to a point, 2009 -2010, you could see the
:16:14. > :16:26.individuals who were cheating and it was not long before they got caught.
:16:27. > :16:35.Sometimes it sounds like you would rather not know the full extent of
:16:36. > :16:37.how damaging to cycling it was. You said recently, "so what do we do
:16:38. > :16:41.with the skeletons in cycling's closet? Mine might not be a popular
:16:42. > :16:44.view, but sometimes I wonder why we insist on rattling them around and
:16:45. > :16:47.whether the time hasn't come to simply concentrate on the present."
:16:48. > :16:54.How does what happened in the 1990s affect me... It is a question of
:16:55. > :17:02.credibility. There are allegations that the cycling body, the UCI,
:17:03. > :17:05.colluded with the doping. Including understanding what was going on with
:17:06. > :17:13.Lance Armstrong but doing nothing about it. That is why the new Chief
:17:14. > :17:15.of the UCI, Brian Cookson, wants a thorough investigation of
:17:16. > :17:23.everything. Including testimony from Armstrong. That is why I think... He
:17:24. > :17:32.wants rid of the old image of the UCI. How can he do that without
:17:33. > :17:38.getting to the truth about really being accountable for what happened
:17:39. > :17:41.in the past? I guess you have a point. But then... What does it mean
:17:42. > :17:46.about me having to answer questions about doping? You paid the price for
:17:47. > :17:52.Lance Armstrong - that is the reality. You have to live with it,
:17:53. > :17:59.don't you? I am here doing an interview, answering questions about
:18:00. > :18:02.doping. You know, I am not standing up and walking off because you ask
:18:03. > :18:06.about doping. I am sitting here trying to explain my views. There
:18:07. > :18:12.are individuals and there is recycling. I feel the way you are
:18:13. > :18:15.doing it, you are tarnishing cycling with this brush - everyone in
:18:16. > :18:24.cycling is tarnished with this brush. Individuals... Like, a
:18:25. > :18:28.corporation, a governing body is a set of individuals. There have been
:18:29. > :18:36.individuals that were corrupted in the past. It could be the same as me
:18:37. > :18:44.going into the allegations of media corruption... I understand your
:18:45. > :18:49.point. The last question on Armstrong and the Armstrong issue.
:18:50. > :18:52.As you say, you and others have actually paid a price in terms of
:18:53. > :19:02.the scrutiny and intense concentration on the doping. I am
:19:03. > :19:05.interests that recently you said that, on Armstrong, I cannot pretend
:19:06. > :19:10.that I am eaten up with resentment or feel betrayed by it. I am
:19:11. > :19:15.surprised you did not feel enormous resentment about what he has done to
:19:16. > :19:24.your sport? It might be a selfish way to look at it but it did not
:19:25. > :19:33.involve me before. Like... I was a pro. When he was riding... If he
:19:34. > :19:38.used doped when he came back, then I would have resentment. I talk about
:19:39. > :19:43.that. You can pick any quote you want to try to manipulate a story
:19:44. > :19:47.but I say that. But before that, it was my sport but I didn't then go,
:19:48. > :19:55.it's not like I sat there and did not care about it. It did not
:19:56. > :19:58.involve me. Why should I think about something that I did not have any
:19:59. > :20:03.emotion about at the time. I was young and naive. It did not change
:20:04. > :20:07.my feeling for the sport. A final thought on your career as it stands.
:20:08. > :20:14.You have had a most successful career -25 stage wins in the Tour.
:20:15. > :20:22.You have won track titles as well. You have always had this belief that
:20:23. > :20:26.in the end, you were the fastest. If it came down to that sprint, you
:20:27. > :20:38.would win. But here is something very honest you said when you were
:20:39. > :20:41.beaten by Marcel Kittel. You said: I was outgunned, I was outsprinted and
:20:42. > :20:44.I was outclassed by him. When you have experienced that, what does
:20:45. > :20:52.that do that sense of invincibility? It knocks it a little bit. But then
:20:53. > :21:02.you find things to be fair... Can you ever be the same Mark Cavendish
:21:03. > :21:08.after something like that? For a couple of weeks... I went to another
:21:09. > :21:21.race... It wasn't the fact of being beaten, it was the sensation I had
:21:22. > :21:24.in my legs. I thought, it will not affect me that much but three weeks
:21:25. > :21:36.after it happened, the sensations were those I had of invincibility in
:21:37. > :21:39.my legs. Not just who I would beat, by how far, but the feeling is
:21:40. > :21:47.that... After eight years you know the feelings. You think those legs
:21:48. > :21:54.of yours can still make you the fastest man on two wheels? I am
:21:55. > :21:57.still the fastest man on two wheels. I will go next year and win bike
:21:58. > :22:01.races, I can guarantee that. I will change things this winter because I
:22:02. > :22:08.do not think I can be quite so blase about it. There are threats. You
:22:09. > :22:17.know, I think, whereas I use to win 100% of every sprint, now it might
:22:18. > :22:33.be 80%. Still, 80%... I am a victim of my own success. You care more
:22:34. > :22:37.about the 20% you don't win. As we have said, it is a punishing sport
:22:38. > :22:40.and every year you do it, you are taking something out of your body.
:22:41. > :22:43.You have to think about the Olympics. You did not win the gold
:22:44. > :22:47.you desperately wanted to win at the London Olympics, on the road. Are
:22:48. > :22:51.you going to keep going and try to get that gold in 2016? Can you keep
:22:52. > :22:55.going that long? For sure. There are riders still going at 40. I do not
:22:56. > :23:19.know if the road race is an option but I would like to get an Olympic
:23:20. > :23:22.gold medal. It is the only thing I have missing. Last year, in London,
:23:23. > :23:25.it was things out of my control. The London Olympics, if it was tomorrow,
:23:26. > :23:29.we would still have the same plan with which we went in last time. For
:23:30. > :23:33.sure, I would like it. In cycling terms, the Olympics has only been in
:23:34. > :23:36.the profession since 1896 so in the history and tradition of cycling,
:23:37. > :23:39.the Olympics have not featured but as a British athlete, as a patriotic
:23:40. > :23:43.man who is proud to put on a jersey representing the flag under which
:23:44. > :23:47.was born, it's a thing... That is the last point I wanted to put to
:23:48. > :23:50.you. Do you think the maturity that has come with all of that,
:23:51. > :23:54.ultimately makes you a better cyclist and sportsman? It makes you
:23:55. > :23:58.better person. Everything that has happened, it has made me a better
:23:59. > :24:08.person for sure. Mark Cavendish, we have to end there. Thank you for
:24:09. > :24:10.being on HARDtalk. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.