Could dandruff be the cause of Cavendish’ poor performance in Milan-San Remo? Tim Dawson 2010
Original article published at www.sundaytimes.com March 2012
Tweets from Mark Canvendish’ team on Saturday morning reveal that at the start of Milan-San Remo the Manx star was ‘all smiles’. As it turned out, though, far more prescient information about cycling’s world champion was to be found in full-page advertisements in numerous magazines. According to the manufacturers of ‘Head and Shoulders’ (an anti-dandruff preparation), the Tour de France Green Jersey holder is also ‘100% cool, 100% confident and up to 100% flake free’.
As we now know, by the time the 298 kilometre race had reached its half-way point, Cavendish’ team was on the back foot. Having failed to make the cut of the first serious climb of the race, his team mates faced a desperate struggle to get their man back into contention. As it was, it proved too much for the Sky men. The entire team visibly sat up and Cavendish was seen to congratulate their forlorn efforts.
It will be a bitter blow for Cavendish, who had very publically identified this race as a priority. The way to avoid similar problems later in the season seems obvious though.
Cav makes no secret of being something of an obsessive. Indeed, he appears content to be described as ‘borderline OCD’. If true, this surely goes some way to explain how he finds the discipline and resolve to maintain winning ways in arguably the most demanding professional sport.
I am no psychologist, but ‘borderline OCD’ does not seem compatible to me with merely being ‘up to 100% flake free’. With such uncertainty about his ‘flakes’, is it any wonder that Cavendish struggled to climb La Manie, just 100k from the start? In 2010 his season was almost completely derailed after a session of cosmetic dentistry went wrong, so we know how important these little aesthetic details are to him.
And that is not his only issue. In an interview with a national newspaper, Cavendish also reveals another way in which his life has changed recently. He is now in a relationship with famous glamour model, Miss Peta Todd (famous at least to consumers of titles such as Nuts and Zoo whose covers she has several times adorned).
Perhaps a ‘celebrity relationship’ is no less that Cavendish deserves. His talent for winning might yet establish him as the greatest sprinter that cycling has ever seen. This puts him on a plane way above the rather modest achievements of other cyclists from these shores. Nevertheless, I can’t help buy worry.
The long-established marital pattern followed by professional members of Velo-club GB has been to hook up with a girl as teenagers, and then to maintain a home the dull northern English suburb from which they sprang. The demands of the pro callander mean that visits home have been fleeting, but in most cases, have provided sufficient time for procreation. Those who have enjoyed modest success in the pro peloton might hope, at the end of their careers, to return to a better class of executive estate, not more than 20 miles from the place of their birth, and then devote themselves to some trade allied to the sport.
Now I know considerably less about the charms of Miss Todd than do the readers of Zoo and Nuts, but my fear is that Cav’s deserved fame has propelled him into a strata of the celebrity atmosphere more akin to a member of the England football team. The Manxman has been a lot more successful on the international stage than our native exponents of ‘the beautiful game’ – but only while he was following the Velo-club GB model of sticking with his teenage sweetheart. Now that he and his lady friend are of interest to the paparazzi, might not his form go the way of Crouch et al?
I hope against hope that Cavendish transcends the familiar British condition where tabloid fame co-exists s with mediocrity on the world stage. Perhaps if he could satisfactorily resolve his ‘flakes’ issue, his form might return . Given how badly his attempts to resolve his ‘teeth issues’ went wrong, I am crossing my fingers more in hope that expectation.
TD Mar 12