Mark Cavendish has said professional cycling was now "less enjoyable" and had become a sport where teams were on the look-out for riders with potential, based on their numbers, rather than looking at what they had already won.
He added said his former team Dimension Data was to blame for him falling ill, but he claimed they blamed him - a reference to a protracted difficult period of nearly four years after being diagnosed with Epstein Barr virus in 2017. Cavendish also believed during his brief stint with Bahrain Victorious and even with QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl - with whom he stormed back to form with four Tour stage wins in 2021 - he was never given a proper chance to target results.
The British champion - with a Netflix film on his life in production - doubted if he would make the grade if he was starting out in the sport as a young rider today. He pointed to a much narrower range of "body types" among riders in the peloton.
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This had arisen, he believed, because the sport now judged riders on their physical capacities, based on their data, rather than other attributes, such as tactical nous.
In the current era, the capacity to produce the desired power was the primary way teams judged riders.
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“Less racing, as opposed to drawn out watt-munching,” he said of racing in today's peloton, in an interview with Matt Dickinson at The Sunday Times. “It’s a lot more physical than tactical. It’s a lot more based on your physical make-up and output. The breadth of body types has narrowed.”
“I’ve been able to adapt through 15 years but without that I don’t think I’d be turning pro now. It’s all on your numbers. In my day, you won as an under-23 and got a contract. Now it is all on physical potential, not what you’ve won.”
He said he was less loyal to people now, due to his experiences in pro cycling, saying "people aren’t loyal to you, they are loyal to their need for you".
He believed his new team, Astana Qazaqstan, had more respect for him and wanted him to race in its colours to simply try to win more races. He believed the team respected him for what he had already achieved and had treated him as "a person, not a commodity".
“I feel I’ve been jumping through hoops for years. First, the Dimension Data years when it was the team’s fault I was sick but I got thrown under the bus for it. That hurt.
"Bahrain, even Quick-Step, I couldn’t prepare, set a target. This is the first time I can set a goal and work towards it rather than feel I have to prove myself just to get the opportunity.”
