Shuffling the pack
Mark Cavendish was standing in the pouring rain in the car park of a leisure centre on the outskirts of the Flanders seaside town of De Panne when someone brushed against his left arm and he winced. The last one-day Classic of the season, Driedaagse Brugge-De Panne, was still being raced, but Cavendish was one of many DNFs.
In his case the failure to finish was understandable: he had crashed, hence his delicate left arm. ‘I was in the front echelon too,’ he lamented.
It was a wild day in mid-October, the rain hammering down and the wind so fierce that riders were literally being blown off the road. Mathieu van der Poel, three days after winning the Tour of Flanders, was blown from the front echelon into a deep ditch, where he lay motionless. Eventually he emerged and climbed into a team car. Apart from his race being over, he was OK.
‘Crosswinds, echelons – proper racing. Hard racing,’ said Cavendish. ‘I’ve loved this period, having these races at this time of year’
It looked miserable. Cavendish felt differently. ‘I absolutely loved it,’ he said. ‘Crosswinds, echelons – proper racing. Hard racing. I’ve loved this period,
