Gifted sportsman or terrible gobs***e – I think both.

Already been discussed at length on here during the Tour, do a search.

I normally expect my top sportspeople to be fairly arrogant and a bit full of themselves. Comes with the job, if you don't think you're the best, you never will be.

Difference between winners and and the rest of us. The real crime is gobshites who aren't the best.

Read his book if you're that interested. I suspect he'd answer that he's both – he quite openly admits that he can act like a tw@, particularly straight after a race but equally, he's quite circumspect once he's calmed down – eg his apology to Thor.

samuri – Member
The real crime is gobshites who aren't the best.

Don't let this turn into another Rudeboy thread….

😉

talented surly teenager, who i can't stand and was quite pleased he won fuk all at the olympics last year. He was the only British track cyclist not to win a medal.

If you've something to shout about… why not? being Humble can be a hindrance a lot of the time… in this country anyway B-(. Considered bad form in the old days… blowing your own trumpet. In current times, humble men are led in to believing they should let their deeds speak volumes… all it does is keep them quieter and lets others over shadow them. It's a competitive world!

There's a world of difference between confidence and arrogance, but I suppose there's plenty of his career left in order for him to learn that.

In what way is he arrogant out of interest? Specific quote or action please. And particularly if you can find one that's not immediately after the finish line while he's still pumped up.

If I was that quick, I'd probably be a terrible gobshite about it too… 😐

I have quite enjoyed his book, despite expecting to hate it. He is clearly a terrible gobshi'ite, but in quite an endearing way. 😀

If the country is going to fracture along the fault-lines of support for Cavendish or Wiggins as Italy supposedly did for Bartali and Coppi post-war then I'm still rooting for Wiggins though.

Super, super good rider, to get over some of the mountains on the tour this year and win the sprint at the end chapeau. The up hill sprint stage victor, one of the best i've seen.

Thor taught him a valuble lesson on his lone break away this year, he realised he needs to up his game.

He WILL be one of the best tour riders we have ever had when he gets a bit more maturity.

Anyone finishing a stage of any tour and then gets a microphone thrush in their face straight after will often say something straight from the heart.

You're assuming two things here: that people watch sport for role models rather than entertainment, and that Cavendish's behaviour has a genuinely negative effect on the sport. I'd take issue with both of those.

Anyone finishing a stage of any tour and then gets a microphone thrush in their face straight after will often say something straight from the heart.

Which is what we want, as that is what shows the real character of an athlete. Not some PR staged interview in an air-conditioned studio!

Good luck to Wiggo and Cav!

I'm not sure I agree Mr_A. I watch to be entertained, but I'm not entertained particularly by irritating people whining when they lose and crowing when they win (not confined to Cav or indeed cycling particularly). This is a matter of taste of course, I don't watch Britain's Got Talent either, for similar reasons. 😀

In all seriousness, I'm not sure I have ever heard anything useful said in a post-race interview with a rider. It's a waste of everyone's time.

I like calling him a gobby scouser, and he can be immensely irritating, but he also promises and delivers.
He's only 24 years old, for god's sake.
Read his book, it is a bit "and then I told them I was great, and I only went out and won, and now they all love me", he also admits his failings and his horrendous post stage comments.
I did like his retort on Thor "Maybe he'll have me banned for eating the wrong breakfast cereal" before winking at the Columbia PR woman who was starting to look a bit worried.

So just after the finish line it's ok to be a tw@ but a nice guy later, that not good and could cost him when he and his team need help. Though his confidence does look bad at times (and I think he'll grow out of it), Cav it seems is good at learning and he'll be for the sport.

aP, I think you recommended his book to me to start with. It's got "I AM SO AWESOME" written through it like a stick of rock, but somehow he manages to come across rather well. And if there's a ghost writer involved he's done a very good job of the voice. 🙂

It's not 'ok' but equally even as quite a reasonable, controlled sort of bloke myself, I can feel quite unreasonable at times straight after a race if something's happened that I'm not happy with…

Cavendish at least admits that.

We complain when we have no one winning anything. Now we start to win we complain that they are "over confident".

WTF? 😆

BigDummy – glad you liked it, I really wasn't sure about Cav, but unlike all the lala books I came away liking him more after reading it rather than liking him less.

"Thor taught him a valuble lesson on his lone break away this year, he realised he needs to up his game."
Thor's breakaway was good, but he needed something to make his green Jersey look good. Cav had taken all of the glory out of it by winning some many stages. Otherwise Thor's jersey would only be remembered for him whining.

So no other cycling (or just sporting) great has ever been arrogant?
Sport is won on and of the track, if you can get your head to beleave you are the best then you will be (look a magic boxs for sports injuries.) Even better if you can get your opponants to beleave you're the best (Rosso and Lorenzo)

I'm not denying he's a supremely gifted athlete, just feel that a little humility might make him a more likeable person.

I'm glad Thor won the green jersey, he's hunky looking, but Cav looks like a swollen toe and makes me feel a little sick.

Thor has the look of a character from a Sven Hassell book.

B-D, I think you are coming at this from a different angle to most. Sometimes arrogance can be a bit tedious (cf Liam Gallagher) but in general people seem to get annoyed by arrogance because their opinion of a person doesn't concur with that person's opinion of themselves. I don't really see why this should be so. You're not going to get stuck in a lft with him any time soon, he provides a good contrast to the "nice" people, and particularly in sport there are objective measures of a person's talent – and by anyone's standards the bloke is talented. As other people have pointed out, in the same situation we'd be doing the same, probably with added groinal thrusting. 🙂

Young successful athlete, probably spent most of his time around 'motivational' types and training hard – not really surprised he may have a different set of communication skills to those who spent their time socialising.

bukkakehairdo – Member
I'm glad Thor won the green jersey, he's hunky looking, but Cav looks like a swollen toe and makes me feel a little sick.

Love this point of view, agree that Thor is a more classier bike rider,although both not my cup of tea.

But the sprint on the Champs, well f0ok me that was nearly as good as self pollution!! 😆

He's brilliant, and people should stopping running him down, he's british, and successful, and he admits he's a goby tw#t sometimes, but as was seen in the TdF, he realised he was in the wrong with his outburst about the green jersey so appologised, and this was all on camera, not out-back with no one watching…….I wonder how all these people would act if they were as successful as him

If I was as succesful as Cav, I'd spend most of my money on twixs and curly wurlys, and the rest on a donkey sanctuary, just to show how nice I was.

As other people have pointed out, in the same situation we'd be doing the same, probably with added groinal thrusting.

i agree, i'd give it some giration, i'd have a podium girls eye out if i'd won on the champs. I don't think it's unreasonable, or expected that a sprinter be the shy and retiring type, I just wish he looked a bit less like a chipmunk with a full facial haematoma.

And Thor Hushovd still looks like he'd invade Poland, given half the chance.

bukkakehairdo, as I've pointed out, you're not likely to even come into the bloke's vicinity any time soon, much less to find him making a passionate lunge at you across a Ritzy's dancefloor.

I've been to a donkey sanctuary, and it was rubbish. 🙂

Mr Agreeable – mine wouldnt be, I'd have them dressed up and doing tricks and stuff, it would be special.

it would be special…………….in your own likeness then

bukkakehairdo, as I've pointed out, you're not likely to even come into the bloke's vicinity any time soon, much less to find him making a passionate lunge at you across a Ritzy's dancefloor.

erm – why is that relevant to my post?

I bow to your superior intellect…

barnsleymitch – Member
Mr Agreeable – mine wouldnt be, I'd have them dressed up and doing tricks and stuff, it would be special.

I salute you, great idea ! get on Dragon's Den, you could also incoporate Dancing bear's and bull fighting. 😀

I find Cav infinitely more interesting than the usual conveyor belt of anodyne, bland platitudes that most professional sportspeople trot out.

I'd want something a bit more highbrow than that. If you can make your donkeys re-enact tableaux from the novels of Jane Austen, I'm in.