Mark Simon Cavendish MBE (born 21 May 1985) is a Manx professional road racing cyclist who currently rides for UCI ProTeam Omega Pharma-Quick Step. Originally a track cyclist specializing in the madison, points race, and scratch race disciplines, he has competed on the road since 2006, rising to prominence as a sprinter, widely considered to be the fastest road cyclist in the world.
On the track Cavendish won gold in the Madison at the 2005 and 2008 world championships riding for Great Britain, with Rob Hayles and Bradley Wiggins respectively, and in the scratch race at the 2006 Commonwealth Games riding for Isle of Man.
As a road cyclist Cavendish achieved eleven wins in his first professional season, equaling the record held by Alessandro Petacchi. Cavendish has won twenty-five Tour de France stages putting him third on the all-time list and fourth on the all-time list of Grand Tour stage winners with forty-three victories. He won the road race at the 2011 road world championships, becoming the second British rider to do so after Tom Simpson in 1965. Other notable wins include the 2009 Milan – San Remo classic and the points classification in all three of the grand tours: the 2010 Vuelta a España, the 2011 Tour de France, and the 2013 Giro d'Italia. In 2012 he became the first person to win the final Champs-Élysées stage in the Tour de France in four consecutive years.
In the Queen's Birthday Honours 2011, Cavendish was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to British Cycling.[6] He won the 2011 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award and in 2012 was named the Tour de France's best sprinter of all time by French newspaper L'Equipe.
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