{"id":229096,"date":"2025-10-28T00:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/229096\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T00:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T00:11:08","slug":"his-greatness-on-the-bike-is-surpassed-by-his-friendship-off-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/229096\/","title":{"rendered":"His greatness on the bike is surpassed by his friendship off it"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Wiggins smiled, then revealed why his former Madison partner had meant so much to him in that process. \u201cMark\u2019s been a big part of that. He\u2019s one of the few people who always checked in on me. His greatness on the bike is surpassed by his friendship off it, for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Manchester to Paris to London \u2014 a shared story of redemption<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a friendship that has weathered the full spectrum of sporting life. From the velodrome boards of Manchester in 2008, where they won world gold in the Madison, to the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es in 2012 when Wiggins, dressed in yellow, famously led Cavendish out for victory \u2014 their careers have always seemed to intertwine at key crossroads.<\/p>\n

Even when tensions ran high during their shared season at Team Sky, the pair\u2019s respect for one another never truly faded. Four years later they reunited on the track at the London World Championships<\/a>, and once again claimed the Madison world title together \u2014 a fitting bookend to the partnership that had kick-started British Cycling\u2019s modern era.\"MarkCavendish<\/p>\n

Cavendish retired from the peloton at the end of 2024<\/p>\n

That history made Cavendish\u2019s words on BBC Radio 2 hit even harder. \u201cThat\u2019s the same \u2014 the things you\u2019ve done for me. And we haven\u2019t always talked like this. We argued a lot, didn\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to recall Wiggins\u2019s quiet guidance behind his own Olympic success. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have won my Olympic medal without him. He showed me how to do a pursuit. I did the Omnium, which is like a mishmash of races, and I wouldn\u2019t have won a medal without him. How he rides that, and how he\u2019s ridden for me \u2014 like on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es, what he did\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, with typical Cavendish sincerity, he brought it back to belief \u2014 the one currency they\u2019ve both traded on through decades of comebacks. \u201cDo you know what the biggest thing is? His belief in me these last years. That comes from knowing me, not from looking from the outside and saying, if you can win at 40 years old. His belief in me meant a lot, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wiggins smiled, then revealed why his former Madison partner had meant so much to him in that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-229096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}