MinnMan

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/r...evelgem-472305

(Well, "perhaps".)

In any event, he gave us some of the most exciting moments in racing for quite a long time. Age gets us all, eventually, and sooner for the ultra-competitive world of top-level sprinters.

79pmooney

I was not a fan of his for the first few years but he grew on me. He matured, I grew to appreciate a racer who was gifted, great race smarts and absolutely fearless. I wish him well in his new life.

Doge

Any day can be the last day of a racer's career. Maybe it is good the younger racers don't think about that so much.

canklecat

I wasn't a fan of Cavendish until late in his career when I watched him in a few interviews and demo videos for GCN and others. Like Sagan, Cav is quite a charming fellow apart from the heat of battle, with the sort of confidence you like to see in a genuine competitor. And like Sagan, Cav was such a fierce competitor that he often seemed arrogant, reckless and indifferent to the safety of other sprinters. But I never cared much for flat stages and bunch sprints, so until fairly recently I didn't really learn to appreciate the finesse and strategy that went along with the brute strength. Watching some good analyses by YouTubers like Lanterne Rouge finally taught me to appreciate sprinters.

I sympathize with Cav. Chronic illness gutted my fitness potential in my mid-20s and it was very difficult to accept. I'd been a decent amateur boxer and enjoyed cycling, some crits and time trials (mostly because I hated running as roadwork for boxing). But I never fully recovered a rare bad reaction to gamma globulin for hepatitis exposure (my main job was hemodialysis nursing), which finally led to an auto immune disorder that killed my thyroid as well.

Coincidentally, I had cared for patients who suffered long-term and permanent debility from Epstein-Barr, which disabused me of my jokey adolescent notions about "mono" and the "kissing disease." In some young adults it's no joke.

It would be nice to think Cav might be able to continue racing, other than in the grueling 3-week grand tours. But even track demands a high level of training that may not be possible for him to sustain.

And at age 35 he doesn't have anything to prove. He amassed an admirable record within his specialty.

diphthong

he's supposedly riding scheldeprijs on wednesday (today).

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mar...-scheldeprijs/

canklecat

Apparently Cav's comment was taken a bit out of context. He meant that if the one day races he planned to enter were all canceled, that might mean, in effect, he'd ridden his last race. Presumably he realizes retirement is inevitable if he doesn't get a contract for 2021.

One good thing to come of this is perhaps people will realize that a virus can carry permanent debility long after the victim has "recovered," even the youngest and fittest of us. A persistent misunderstanding during the coronavirus pandemic has been the myth that it's "only a bad cold" and affects only the respiratory system. But increasingly research indicates viruses may have lingering system-wide impacts and the respiratory system is only the point of entry.