‘I don’t have enough time for my family’

Professional sportsmen we are told have short careers and make great sacrifices to reach the pinnacle of their chosen sport. The first is undoubtedly true, the average career length of a professional footballer, according to the PFA is eight years and for every Ryan Giggs or Gigi Buffon there is a Dean Ashton or Gary Bailey. What of the second oft quoted statement, how true is that, if you sift beneath the gambling debts, drug taking, alcoholism, broken marriages, computer game obsessions, sacrifices are being made?

I'd stick my head above the parapet and say that most sacrifices are made when the individual concerned is young and trying to make it in their chosen sport, once a certain level is attained then the professionalism required to maintain that standard kicks in. It's not about sacrifice it's about doing the job, after all you don't hear business people complain they are making sacrifices by not spending their working days in pubs or visiting prostitutes, it comes with the territory.

There are of course exceptions to this stereotypical picture I have misleadingly painted and reading the interview of Mark Cavendish by Paul Kimmage yesterday I couldn't help thinking that Cav is taking personal sacrifice, both for himself and those around him to new levels. It is a level of determination you rarely read about in sportsmen these days, of course the greats all have tales to tell, the parental time given up freely to assist young athletes, the getting out of bed at four o'clock to spend two hours swimming before the public baths open, the endless miles spent pounding the roads in the early hours, the hundreds of hours spent in the gym with sparring partners, we are familiar with those. And yet I find Cav's story unusual even by the standards that some individuals, and they almost always are in sports where individual performances count more than team performance, allow us to share.

The fastest self propelled man on two wheels in the world finds himself in a strange position compared to other team sports, the team works as a unit to allow him to take personal glory. That glory is then generously shared with his team, Cav's first act after crossing the line in any stage victory is to search for the team mate or mates who have led him out into the final straight. Reading the interview I felt an overwhelming sense of admiration whilst at the same time a sense of being uncomfortable with what he was sharing with us, the apparently ruthless sportsman is pushing everybody and everything out of his way to pursue these few years at the top of his sport.

It's an uplifting and yet at the same time a sad story in its way.