Mark Cavendish: 'I believe I've raced in one of the cleanest sports in the world'

Appearing on talkSPORT to promote his new autobiography, Believe: Achieving the Impossible, written in collaboration with Daniel Friebe, Cavendish was asked if Cycling’s reputation has recovered after the Lance Armstrong scandal.

"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," said Cavendish. "There'll still be people who are caught for cheating and stuff like that."

Cavendish, who ended his glittering career after winning a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage in 2024, admitted Armstrong's influence on his early career before the American was stripped of seven Tour titles in 2013 for what was described as the "most sophisticated drugs cheating programme in sports history."

"Yeah, he was growing up,” answered Cavendish when asked if Armstrong was an idol of his. 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."

Cavendish believes that cycling’s aggressive approach to anti-doping has transformed the sport.

"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," Cavendish explained. "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."

The Manx Missile insisted his own career success would have been impossible in cycling's previous era.

"I tell you, I could not have done what I did in the sport if cycling was how it was in the past," Cavendish said. "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."

Cavendish also discussed his battle with the Epstein-Barr virus, which threatened to completely derail his career after being diagnosed with the infection while racing for Team Dimension Data in 2017.

"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," he revealed. 

The illness took a severe toll on his mental health, with Cavendish describing himself as "a nightmare to live with" during that period.

"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," he said.

Cavendish also discussed the difficulty of finding a new team following his illness, despite the success he had achieved up to that point. From 2017 until the start of 2021, Cavendish won two races, which was a stark contrast to the 144 victories he had at the end of 2016. 

"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," Cavendish explained.

Cavendish overcame adversity when he gave a tearful interview at Gent-Wevelgem in 2020, when racing for Bahrain-Merida at the end of a congested COVID-19 season, hinting at retirement with no contract for the following season.

Ultimately, Cavendish secured a contract with Deceuninck-QuickStep, where he would go on to win four stages of the 2021 Tour de France and the points classification for the 2nd time in his career. 

After moving to Astana Qazaqstan, Cavendish crashed out of the 2023 Tour de France, in what he said would be his final participation, whilst trying to separate himself from Eddy Merckx as the greatest Tour stage winner, with 35 victories. 

However, Cavendish decided to postpone his retirement for a year and was able to complete his ambition twelve months later in Saint-Vulbas, cementing his legacy.