After winning the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Mark Cavendish has said that he thinks his future will be in cycling, stating that he is looking towards “cycling team management” having hung up his wheels.
The Manxman received the BBC award award on stage alongside Chris Hoy and Bradley Wiggins on Tuesday night. He rounded out the final year of his professional career with the prize, which recognised his Tour de France stage wins record set in the summer.
While British Olympic 800-metre gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson took home the night’s main award, Cavendish said he would’ve liked to have been considered for nomination, but noted that he hadn’t been in 2021, either.
Cavendish is now retired but remains competitive.
“The lifetime award is very nice but, as a competitor, the main award is being shortlisted. That’s my job – to compete. Although a [Sports Personality of the Year] award is subjective it’s still a competition,” Cavendish told the Guardian in an interview with Donald McRae.
“A lifetime award is a bit like when I received my knighthood earlier in the year. It’s not something you’re expecting or you work towards. It gets bestowed on you so that’s very nice.”
Cavendish said that he has “completed everything I could do in cycling.” He said that “Of course I will miss racing but I’m happy because I’ve had 20 years and done more than I ever could have planned or dreamed of doing.”
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There’s still more to come for Cavendish in professional cycling, however, even if it’s away from racing itself.
XDS Astana team manager Alexander Vinokourov confirmed to Cyclingnews that Cavendish won’t be part of the team staff in 2025, but the Manxman does see himself working in the sport going forward.
“Obviously I’ve still got a lot of life left, and I still have to provide for my family, and so I think that’s going to be in cycling team management. I know the sport and I know how to build a team and that’s where I’m heading. It’s exciting,” he said.
“There is nothing more I could have done in the sport. And there already was zero to be done a long time ago. I’m very, very lucky that I get to retire, having zero regrets. I’m finally going out on my terms – not because of injury or some team manager trying to make me retire.
“I’ve done everything I wanted and I’m choosing the way I leave the sport as a competitor. How lucky is that?”
