Tour de France - from the Archives 2007

Pic of Mark passing through Rochester/Borstal Kent in T-Mobile colours during stage 1 of the Tour de France 2007...



Tour de France 2012 - Stage 5

Well, Mark was beaten in the sprint at the conclusion of stage 5 by his former teammate, Andre Griepel. This was Griepel's second consecutive stage win and William Fotheringham over at the Guardian, explains much better than I can, how and why Cav was beaten...



Tour de France 2012 - Stage 4 - Ouch!

Mark suffered from a few cuts and bruises today as the peloton experienced an almighty crash just before the end of the stage in Rouen. Andre Griepel won the weakened sprint, the German taking his 2nd ever TdF stage victory, in Mark's absence....



Team Sky boss reported after the stage that both Mark and his "minder", Bernie Eisel, would start stage 5 on Thursday morning...

Further details can be found on Sky's website.



Tour de France 2012 - Stage 3

Mark finished safely in a slower pack 7:27 down on stage winner, Peter Sagan (a star in the making!), in 153rd place, which leaves him 130th overall, almost 10 minutes down on the yellow jersey holder, Fabian Cancellara. This was a hilly day on the run in to Boulogne, where the out and out sprinters were not expected to feature.

Bad news for Team Sky, domestique Kanstantsin Siutsou is out of the race after a crash - read all about it here. This is the first loss for Team Sky, hopefully there will be no other problems as the team will need all its support for Bradley Wiggins, especially in the mountain stages...

Tour De France 2012 - Stage 2 - Looking After Business...

I have run out of words to explain the joy a Mark Cavendish win brings... His first stage win at this year's Tour de France, a terrific sprint in which he outgunned his former teammate, Andre Griepel, with another former teammate, Matt Goss, behind him in 3rd place, proved that Mark's previous victories were not just down to the "High Road Train", today's victory being achieved with little assistance from Sky teammates.... In the end, half a wheel length was enough and the post race interview with Andre Griepel, on ITV4, showed how much Griepel was disappointed by being beaten by his erstwhile teammate.

Time will tell if Sky can bring home both yellow and green jerseys but on today's evidence, it is not an impossibility....



This takes Mark Cavendish onto 21 TdF stage victories... - next stop, 22 victories to draw level with Lance Armstrong and Andre Darrigade....

This is how Cycling Weekly reported today, Velo News and the Isle of Man News.

Tour de France 2012 - Stage 1

Mark currently lies in 106th place overall (+2:30) following the first stage of Le Tour, through the rolling Belgian landscape. He also picked up some points in the intermediate sprint and lies in 25th place overall (8 points) in the battle for the green jersey. After 2 days, Fabian Cancellara wears both the yellow and green jerseys. Peter Sagan has made an explosive Tour debut winning the uphill finish on Sunday.

Here is what Team Sky had to say....

Tour de France 2012 (this blog has awoken!) - Prologue

Well, where was I? Whilst this site won't win any awards for regular updates, I hope the quality of the posts which do get published, more than make up for it.... well, perhaps not!

In the blog's absence, Mark did win Sports Personality of the Year 2011, did sign for Sky Pro Cycling, has had a baby, and has competed in some cycle races in 2012... Other than that, it has been a quiet year for both Mark and this blog!

The remainder of 2012 is crucial for Mark, can he defend his green jersey at Le Tour and can he get gold at the London Olympics, just one week later?

Mark finished the prologue (6.4K) in Liege in 41st place, 23 seconds behind "Spartacus" Fabian Cancellara (7:13) in a pretty decent performance for the Manx Missile. Mark, unusually clad in Sky black kit (Mark is the "road" world champion, Tony Martin is the "time trial" world champion, so Tony wore the WC jersey yesterday in the first time trial of this year's event), looks to have shed some weight as he prepares for Box Hill in a few weeks time...

This blog will try harder to keep it all going in the next few weeks!