Mark Cavendish’s race coach, Rod Ellingworth, says the world champion is planning a strong start to 2012 and is targeting second victories in Milan Sanremo and Gent Wevelgem.
Cavendish, who has signed for Team Sky for 2012, took the Danish title in September this year, a victory which catapulted him into the world of Britain’s top sportsmen.
His incredible success at this year's Tour de France, where he won the maillot vert, earned him an MBE and a nomination for BBC Sports Personality of the Year, which he is hot favourite to win.
Despite his new found celebrity status, Ellingworth believes Cavendish’s head is still in the right place.
“He is going okay. I think there are a lot of distractions, but in general I think he is doing a little more work at the minute than he has in the last couple of years, so that is pretty good,” he said.
“We will see how things go…but by the end of January he will be ahead of where he was at the same time last year.”
Cavendish has the opportunity to be the first world champion to triumph in the SanRemo race in over two decades, but he’ll need to be in peak condition to pull it off. The Italian rider Guiseppe Saronni was the last to achieve the feat, way back in1983.
