page_title: Mark Cavendish
section_title: 2008
hierarchical_section_title: Mark Cavendish / Career / Professional career / 2008
caption_attribution_description: English: Bradley Wiggins (left) and Mark Cavendish (right) on their way to becoming world Madison champions 2008, Manchester Velodrome
context_page_description: Mark Cavendish is a Manx racing cyclist who rides for team dimension data. Originally a track cyclist in the madison, points race, and scratch race, he has competed on the road since 2006.
  He is a double Madison World Champion and Commonwealth Games gold medallist on the track. As a road cyclist, he has risen to fame as a sprinter. He got eleven wins in his first professional season, equalling the record held by Alessandro Petacchi. In the 2008 Tour de France he won four stages, a then unprecedented achievement for a British cyclist and he has been described as the fastest sprinter in the world. He continued his wins in 2009 by taking the Spring classic, Milan – San Remo. Cavendish started racing informally at 12, as a mountain-bike rider.
  Cavendish was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Douglas in 2008, and collected the award on 14 April 2011. He lives on the Isle of Man and has a training base in Quarrata, Tuscany, Italy.
context_section_description: In 2008, Cavendish returned to the track, winning the Madison World Championships in Manchester with Bradley Wiggins, as Great Britain topped the medal table.
  On the road, Cavendish won his first stages of a grand tour, by picking two victories in the 2008 Giro d'Italia. Cavendish won four further stages in the 2008 Tour de France, his first coming in Stage 5 from Cholet to Châteauroux. He won again on Stage 8, Stage 12 and Stage 13, making him the first British rider to collect four stages in a single Tour. Overnight, at the age of just 22, he became the "fourth most successful British professional in history", said The Independent. After Stage 14, Cavendish abandoned the Tour to concentrate on the Beijing Olympics. He and Team Columbia manager Bob Stapleton agreed that riding the Alps was a risk to his hopes. But Cavendish, with Bradley Wiggins, failed to win a medal, finishing joint eighth in the madison. He was the only British track cyclist not to win a medal.  Following the Olympics, Cavendish remained angry with British Cycling for not giving much attention to the madison, though Chris Boardman said that Cavendish's professional commitments also interfered with his build up to the Olympics. In November 2008, Cavendish said that he had no further plans to return to track cycling.
  The rest of his season was also successful, with a total of eleven further race wins, including three each at the Tour of Ireland which he abandoned on the final day, and the Tour of Missouri, winning his only points classification of the season at the latter. At the Tour de Romandie, Cavendish won the prologue time-trial, beating compatriot Bradley Wiggins and emphasising his short-distance time-trial abilities.
caption: Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish on their way to becoming the 2008 world Madison champions
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3", "Image XResolution": "240", "Image YResolution": "240", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Nikon Transfer 1.0 W", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:20 22:57:44", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/250", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:03:29 15:02:12", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:03:29 15:02:12", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "995723/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "200", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "14", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "14", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "200", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}