Mark Cavendish won four Tour de France stages in 2021, also taking the green jersey 10 years after his first win in the competition. But he says he was done out of money the following season (Photo: Charly Lopez)

Mark Cavendish has accused former Soudal-QuickStep boss, Patrick Lefevere, of forgetting a conversation they had about what the Manx rider would be paid in 2022, the year after he had won four Tour de France stages for the team while racing for minimum wage.

Cavendish was thrown a lifeline by the team for the 2021 season. And when Irish sprinter Sam Bennett became injured and was unable to start the Tour that year, the British rider stepped in.

He won four stages and the green jersey in a comeback performance for the ages after years in the wilderness due to Epstein Barr virus. Cavendish had not won at the Tour for five years and his only points classification win on the race was way back in 2011.

However, in his new book, ‘Believe: Achieving the Impossible’, Cavendish has accused Lefevere of sharp practice. He claims the notoriously tight former manager was forgetful about their initial deal and ultimately lowballed him, just because Lefevere wanted to feel he had won in their contract talks.

“He was just screwing me, that’s how it felt,” said Cavendish of Lefevere’s attitude when it came to the issue of how much the British rider would be paid when he re-signed for the team in 2022.

His four stage wins in the 2021 Tour took him to 34 victories in the race, level with then record-holder Eddy Merckx. But when Cavendish signed with QuickStep again for 2022, he was overlooked for the Tour team, as Fabio Jakobsen was picked as its sprinter instead.

Cavendish’s complaint now is about how the financial aspect of the 2022 season contract was handled, even though he had hit huge success in the 2021 Tour against all odds.

Cavendish and Lefevere in a public display of affection on the 2021 Tour. But the British rider was not picked the following year, when he now claims he was lowballed on his salary by the Belgian manager

“A year earlier, Patrick, in whose team I’d raced in my pomp, had even asked me to send him a CV before he considered signing me, for fuck sake” said Cavendish of preparing for 2022. “Now he’d spent months making me sweat again – just fucking with me, was how it felt.

“I reminded him of the agreement we’d had before the (2021) Tour, for €500,000 (in 2022), and he said he had no recollection. I told him that, anyway, that was the price we’d discussed, and since then I’d won four stages at the Tour and the green jersey…

“So really I should be getting double, particularly as there were riders in the team who had won two, three races in their entire career and were on seven figures. Patrick shook his head apologetically: he only had €250,000 left in his budget,”

In the end, Cavendish secured €500,000 for 2022, though he was denied a start in the Tour. He had to ride for Astana for the next two seasons before he eventually won his 35th Tour stage in 2024, pulling one clear of Merckx and topping the all-time Tour stage winners’ list.

“The whole saga had been frankly insulting,” Cavendish says. “Somehow Patrick always found a way to make sure he felt like the winner, and here he’d done it again. I’d blinked first and, ultimately, should have held out for €750,000.”

However, Lefevere has now hit back at Cavendish over the book’s claims, telling Belgian newspaper, Het Nieuwsblad, what the British rider has said was insulting to him.

“I find what Mark writes in his autobiography particularly regrettable,” Lefevere said. “I rescued him from a difficult situation and gave him a contract when no one else wanted him. Now we are facing this.

“Mark got everything we agreed at the time, just like all the riders who rode for our team. There are inaccuracies in his story that I don’t want to go into, but ingratitude is clearly the world’s reward.”