Mark Cavendish sits in a dusty valley off a long, straight road in Alicante province, smiling with team-mates during a break in the day training in the hills and orange trees of eastern Spain.
It is warm and windy for January, but Cavendish's high spirits rise above the gusts, as well as the Flemish retorts of his fellow riders. There is no hint of the horror of the November break-in at his home in Essex, or the broken ribs and a collapsed lung sustained in a heavy crash at a track race that same month.
He is small in stature next to several of the powerhouses who aid his work for the ebullient Belgian Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team, and he sits on the edge of the throng, but he is the matriarch. You can sense it because of his success as a sprinter.
Cavendish won four times at the Tour de France last July, tying the record for most stage victories by a single man. It was a great comeback at the age of 36.
Cavendish hadn't won a Tour stage in five years. He had suffered setbacks season after season. He considered retirement in the late 2020s due to injury, illness and depression. It was an emotional return and one that made cycling fans very happy.
It was the first time that a sportsperson was not associated with a human. Cavendish says that it was the most connected he had ever felt in his career.
All I can say is that the biggest joy I got was people thanking me. I haven't heard that before, but I would get well done or Congratulations. Thank you for the joy and hope you give us. It is touching, you know.
I have had some hard years, but a lot of people have had worse years. If you push hard enough, anyone can come back and stand on the top step.
Patrick Lefevere said that what happened last summer was a miracle. He knew how determined the British man had been with his training. Cavendish is the hardest working man in cycling. He will make sure everyone else is working hard. He can be angry.
Tom Steels, a former sprinter himself and directeur sportif for the team, says that when he steps out of the team bus, you never know if he will come back in five minutes.
Once it is fixed, you can always talk with him. It is not personal, but you never know how he will react.
Cavendish is surrounded by journalists, athletes and coaches in a large room that is loud and filled with chatter. Everyone knows he is unhappy. He has been asked if he will be going to the Tour de France. Again. It's another source of irritation.
He might seem like a shoo-in for a 35th victory, which would set a new record. It is not that simple. He was only included last year because of Sam Bennett's injury. The competition will be fierce again.
Getting another shot will be difficult. Cavendish has never been simple. It is what has made him who he is.
The most gladiatorial and combative riders are the sprinters. Cavendish is acerbic, inaccessible hero with a brooding wisdom and a sharp wit that will catch you off guard. His attitude has always stood out.
Mark will not hold back his emotions. He will say it if he is angry, says Lefevere, who is known to have cut a few journalists down to size.
I think he has a lot of emotions and emotions drive him, but it must not hide his huge talent. Don't forget this.
Growing up on the Isle of Man, Cavendish showed his talent on a BMX. The Isle of Man is located in the Irish Sea between north-west England and Northern Ireland and is where they race the fastest motorbikes in the world.
There is a photo of a Cavendish at the Tour de France in 1999 with one of his idols. The youngster left school to work in a bank, with the goal of earning enough money to become a professional cyclist in Europe.
He did that. Cavendish earned the nickname the Manx Missile as he began to show his full potential within a peer group of punchiest, most physically aggressive riders, such as German rivals Kittel and Greipel.
They would jink and twitch on the tarmac, gambling on the correct line to launch themselves towards the finish in a furious release of energy, a brutal miracle of fight and flight at speeds close to 80kph.
Cavendish won 30 times in the Tour between 2008 and 2016 for five different teams.
Unlike 100m sprinters in track and field, who know their lane is their own, cycling's sprinters know each battle could end in a horrifying crash, just as it did for Cavendish at the 2017 Tour when Peter Sagan's elbow was used as a blocking tool. Cavendish was forced to withdraw with a broken shoulder after being forced into metal barriers.
The bone healed. Looking back, that moment seemed to signal a shift in his competitive spirit. It was a journey to the depths of despair.
Cavendish missed the time cut on stage 11 and was eliminated from the Tour. An explanation as to why came a month later when he was diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr virus. He was left with less energy for elite competition and training.
Cavendish suffered some bizarre crashes when he returned after a period of total rest. During the Milan-San Remo, there was a huge somersault when clattering into a traffic island. He came to grief behind the commissaires car before the Abu Dhabi Tour started.
After a change of teams in 2020 didn't help, he declared at the end of the season that he might have been the last race of his career.
There would have been no shame in retiring then. Cavendish was already the second most successful at winning stages in the Tour, a green jersey winner and world road champion in 2011, an Olympic silver medallist and a three-time world champion on the track.
He did not leave. His boss was watching.
The situation of more than a year ago, he looked desperate on the TV.
He came to my office and we found a last-minute deal, everything went like a train.
Only a few watched the first signs that he was back to his best.
Cavendish won four of the eight stages at the Tour of Turkey in April 2021. Even if he was up against second-rate opposition on the World Tour, the joy and relief was clear.
He won his first stage and we had a Facetime call, but he started crying.
It was the best moment. I got off the phone and said we were going to drink Dom Perignon.
There was a big twist two months later.
Bennett was the sprinter for us, but his injury came in June. We put Mark in at the last minute. He won a stage after flying over in a helicopter two hours before the start.
When it was clear Bennett couldn't do the Tour, I called Mark and he told Patrick to not think about it. I was nervous like a junior when my suitcase was ready, but I knew he would do a great Tour.
When he won his first stage, it was one of the biggest emotions I have ever seen with my team. The miracle happened when one stage became four and then the green jersey.
Cavendish's comeback was remarkable for an endurance sport where form and physical output numbers rarely show an upward turn as age increases.
The Tour de France saw a lot from Cavendish. The fans want it to end.
Even though he missed out on a 35th win by finishing third in the final stage in Paris, he never seemed to care about the record. It was the sheer joy of competition that drove him.
He is too modest to try to understand why he is so popular with young guys who want to follow in his footsteps.
We don't know if we will see him at this year's Tour. Everybody has a boss, no matter how high your status is.
"I'm not Madame Soleil, I don't have a crystal ball," says Lefevere. "Last year nobody knew Mark would come to the team, let alone compete at the Tour, or win four stages.
The best riders always go to the best competition.
He is a leader with his British humor. He does it in a natural way and doesn't force anything. Sometimes he is a firework, but only 10 minutes of fireworks will calm him down. Let's say 10 to 20 minutes.
He gets a lot of power out of the battle. He is the best sprinter I have ever seen in cycling.
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