Mark Cavendish Becomes Britain's Greatest Sprinter in Tour De France

(Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

Yes, there is immense dismay amongst certain British people when anyone British wins anything! Especially if the winner does not know his station in life and does not grovel to the media with his gratitude and modesty.

Allow me to offer an ironical comment on some of my British fellow countrymen: "Who is this working class lad from the Isle of Man with a bit of a Liverpool accent? How dare he win four stages in the Tour de France at the age of 23 in 2008? An another five at 24 in 2009?

"Good gracious, he actually has the temerity to speak to the media and have an opinion, too. He's not modest! Damn the man. Reminds me of that Daley Thomson character who showed no respect to the Queen when winning two decathlon Olympic gold medals."

I am sure if Mark Cavendish was Italian, French, or from the United states, there would be wall-to-wall roadshow promotions telling us he is the best sprinter of his generation and so on.

But we British so like to lose well. Perhaps we think there is more achievement in shaking hands as the "good losers" than celebrating being the best in the world? Is there a deep malaise in the British character, a split that is based on the old class divisions which never really accepted that the working classes should be able to beat their "superior" public school cousins?

Then all those foreigners started playing those games that we invented and started beating us!

Deep down, does this flow from a yearning for the days when "The sun never set on the (British) Empire"? When we British were so supremely confident of our rule over a third of the planet that we could afford to pretend that we were still jousting like Knights under King Arthur, and a good loser was as good as a winner?

Mark Cavendish is the best sprinter in the Tour de France. He is unbeatable in most circumstances and showed two days ago that he is breaking new boundaries by starting his sprint from 200 metres out and holding off all comers.

I think it is wonderful to have a winner from road cycling from Britain to celebrate about. From all the hype and the millions of words in the Press you'd think that Lance Armstrong had won something this year.  

Cavendish seems to me to be a very likeable sort of bloke, he wears his heart on his sleeve. No stiff upper lip from him. Some British people are uncomfortable with that. So it's easy for the media to lay traps for him, to quote him out of context.

I know it's hard for the media to give up their addiction to Lance Armstrong's PR operation. (I think that a lot of the commentators fall for the Armstrong road show because they are past it, too, and identify with the idea of going back to the past and re-living past glories.)

I also wonder if some of the posters on the cycling sporting discussion boards know anything about the Tour de France? Especially when they state that Cavendish would be nothing without his Columbia team, as if this makes his achievement any the less!

The unpleasant personal attacks on Mark Cavendish that flow from some of their keyboards suggest serious jealousy. Maybe they are old(er) men (whose powers are waning) and who resent the triumph of youth?

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?