Sir Mark Cavendish: "They wrote me off but I’m a born racer" - The Sports Agents
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 November 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Never write off a born racer: Sir Mark Cavendish had won 30 stages of the world's biggest cycling race, The Tour de France (even winning one makes a riders career) but he'd been out of the game for 5 years - so no one would give him a job. What happened next was one of the biggest comebacks of all time to put him among the sporting greats.
Sir Mark Cavendish joins us on today's show - how did it feel to be written off? Was it fair to call him a “dickhead” as a racer? And after childhood success in ballroom dancing - is Strictly next?
Plus the best bits from The Sports Agents this week - is ChatGPT running your team? And why risk staging Eubank v Benn 2?
📩 Got a question? Send it here: https://forms.gle/9SBbW1SYWqXLKnRT7
💭 Tell us your thoughts in our listener survey: https://forms.gle/YMUvajQktqBuimgh6
🖥️ Watch our full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SportsAgentsPod
📱Follow us on socials:
TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@thesportsagents
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesportsagents/
X - https://x.com/sportsagentspod
📥 Email: thesportsagents@global.com
Executive Producer: Adonis Pratsides
Producer: Sophie Penney
Video Producer: Sam Trudgill
Social Media Editor: Calum Scotland
Guest Booker: Kirsty Giddings
Tom Hughes is Editor for The News Agents podcast network
Vicky Etchells is the Commissioning Editor for Global
You can listen to this episode on Alexa - just say "Alexa, ask Global Player to play The Sports Agents".
👕 The Sports Agents have merch! You can buy yours now: https://store.global.com/collections/the-sports-agents
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | 5am. |
| 0:03.6 | You wake up with a jolt, |
| 0:05.5 | after a nightmare that your business was hit by a fraud attack in the night. |
| 0:09.4 | This is the moment you choose to relax, |
| 0:11.8 | knowing that Barclay card payments is helping to prevent fraud 24-7. |
| 0:16.3 | So you can go back to counting sheep, not pounds. |
| 0:21.4 | That's how we're protecting your business. |
| 0:24.2 | Barclay card payments. |
| 0:26.1 | Terms and conditions apply. |
| 0:27.1 | See barclaycard.com.uk forward slash business for details. |
| 0:32.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:36.0 | How do you go from the best in the world to not even being capable and back again? |
| 0:41.8 | Our guest today, Sir Mark Cavendish, the Manx Missile, was winning Tour de France stages almost every year |
| 0:47.5 | before the Epstein Bar virus left him at a standstill, depressed, fatigued and worse. |
| 0:53.3 | Then in his late 30s he made one of the biggest sporting comebacks to become the greatest cyclist of all time. It's slightly up him and there is Mark Kavanish. There is Mark Kavanaughes through the centre. He's hit the front here. Mark Kavanaugh is there. There's a crash behind. Mark Kavanaugh this is history. This is history. First there was Marks. Now's Mark Cavendish standing on the shoulders of giants. Mark Cavendish has 35 stage wins. More than anybody who ever came before. Most doubted. |
| 1:25.1 | And it's crazy to think that in a world where data rules, he was struggling to get a job because the sacred data said he didn't have it anymore. |
| 1:33.3 | Never write off a born racer, hey? |
| 1:35.4 | Exactly. |
| 1:36.0 | How did it feel to be written off? |
| 1:37.9 | Was it fair? |
| 1:38.7 | Some people called him a dickhead. |
| 1:40.5 | We've all been there. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Global, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Global and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.