When asked this week if Marcel Kittel is a faster sprinter than he is, Mark Cavendish quickly replied, “No!” Kittel has been dubbed the most successful neo-pro ever because last year in his debut season he won 17 recognised UCI races. Rumour has it he pushes out 1890 watts during a sprint. A doctor asked me for how long and I told him I have no idea how this power stuff works but I think it means he can boil water with his legs or something. Cavendish, I am told, is around the 1590W region but because he is so small, aerodynamics makes up for it. Kittel was actually brought onto his 1T4i team (formerly Skil-Shimano) as a leadout man and time trial specialist until at their first training camp, the sprinter he was meant to be leading out was struggling to stay on his wheel. The team duly thought, “Let’s see what this kid can do in the sprints,” and he went on to win stage 3 of the Tour de Langkawi early on in the season. He would then continued in this fashion for the rest of the year.

Now the question remains, will he beat Cavendish willy nilly this year? At the risk of sounding like Peta Todd, I will say no, for a number of reasons. The 23 year old Kittel is quick, but Mark has got a lot more experience on his side. He showed this in the World Championships in Copenhagen last year. The entire Great Britain team was on the front of the race the whole day and only lost Cavendish in the last kilometre. He got boxed in and just when it looked like all the work would be in vain, he somewhere found a gap in the mess and was later crowned World Champion. Another reason, is Bernie Eisel. The Austrian is to Cavendish what custard is to peaches. Bonnie and Clyde took their inspiration from these two. If Ant and Dec were ever to retire, look no further than Mark and Bernie as replacements. With Bernie and a mightier Team Sky by his side, Cavendish will have all the confidence he needs to crossing the finish line first this season.

Of course there is another matter we have not discussed. Andre Greipel. We’ll have to leave that one for another column because I am not sure how quickly Cavendish could answer “no” if he was asked whether he would beat Greipel every time they went head to head this season.

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