99th Scheldeprijs – Winner’s quotes

01 july 2020

Mark Cavendish: “I have to come back next year.”

SCHOTEN – Mark Cavendish never lost on Churchill Avenue in Schoten. He received a first opportunity to show the international public how fast he was in 2007. He confirmed that one year later. The two following years he did not start in the Scheldeprijs but last Wednesday he won for the third time and took level with Peet Oellibrandt, who won the race in 1960, 1962 and 1963. “Really? I believed I broke the record today”, told Cavendish laughing. “ It means I have to come back next year.”

Source: press office Marc Van Landeghem, April, 6th

25 years old HTC-Highroad British rider explained how important and special that win is to him. “First of all because this race is a very special one to me. I won my first big success here and it is also here that I learned to like Belgian cycling. I was very sorry I was not able to participate in the last two editions because my calendar was already too loaded. The second reason is that I had to cope with bad luck the last weeks on Flemish roads and particularly in Ghent-Wevelgem which is a race I absolutely want to win some day. Today I could one more time reckon on a very strong team. In the final laps my team-mates helped me all the time so that I was never far from the first positions. Leigh Howard achieved a fantastic job in the last kilometer. Thanks to him I was able to catch Hutarovich rather easily when he attacked. From that point the only thing I had to do was to choose the ideal moment to go and win. I hope nobody was badly hurt in the crash. The last kilometer was not the only one to be chaotic. At a certain point I even thought maybe I was getting older! To find the right position is really not easy in such races because some roads are very narrow ones. This is the difference with a flat stage in the Tour, besides the fact of course that the pressure is also higher in the stage race. »

Cavendish did not win a lot this season. Before Scheldeprijs victory he won only the final stage of the Tour of Oman. “If I needed to win today to confirm? No.”, answered Cavendish after a short silence and after he gave a look at the journalist who asked. “When you won fifteen stages in the Tour and also a race like Milan-Sanremo, I don’t think you need to confirm anything.”

Next Sunday, Cavendish will race Paris-Roubaix for the first time, before taking some rest before the Giro and the Tour of France. “Roubaix is something new for me. It would not be realistic to think I can win Paris-Roubaix or the Tour of Flanders in the future. Nevertheless those are the races I watched when I was a kid. To participate is already a dream coming true. It is also an opportunity to help my team-mates. In that race I can repay them in kind for the job they achieved for me the rest of the year.”