Nick Westby: Cavendish poised to belatedly build on the legacy of Simpson

There are no brown tourism signs that point the way to the small Simpson shrine tucked inside the Harworth and District Cycling Club.

It is a quaint, almost reserved pictorial reminder of a cycling great from a bygone era.

Simpson’s honour is best remembered on Mont Ventoux where a headstone with his silhouette carved into stone lays in memory of the place where he died on July 13, 1967, just a few hundred yards from the summit of that year’s Tour de France stage.

Two years earlier, the Doncaster rider had become the first Briton to win the world road race title, a ‘where were you when’ moment for the sport in this country that should have acted as a watershed.

One of six sons of a north east miner, Simpson ruled the cycling world and would go on to be named that year’s BBC Sports Personality.

British cycling stood on the brink of take-off.

Another Yorkshireman, Barry Hoban of Wakefield, had led out Simpson in the early stages of the world championship race in San Sebastian, northern Spain, and would go on to win eight stages of the Tour de France between 1967 and 1975.

His was a national record that stood until very recently when it was broken by the same prolific winner who ended Britain’s 46-year wait for a world road race champion last Sunday – Mark Cavendish.

Cavendish, whose middle class background differs contrastingly with Simpson’s upbringing, has the same will to win that the Yorkshireman displayed, even up to the moment of Simpson’s untimely and controversial death as he defied his burning lungs to try and reach the finish line on Ventoux.

The post mortem found that he had taken amphetamine and alcohol, a diuretic combination which proved fatal when combined with the heat, the hard climb of the Ventoux and a stomach complaint.

Simpson’s 1965 triumph did not prompt the anticipated dawning of a dominant generation of Brits, despite the best efforts of Simpson himself, Hoban and a handful of others.

Cavendish’s victory, however, was further evidence that nearly half a century later, Britain is finally ready to become the dominant force of road cycling.

But it was with typical foresight, that Simpson, on his acceptance of the BBC honour in 1965 said that Britain would not kick on as a European force until major sponsorship of a national team was found.

That was never forthcoming and it would not have gone unnoticed at his Harworth shrine or Mont Ventoux resting place, that Britain’s success in recent years has owed much to the money pumped into a national team by Sky – an estimated £50m over four years – that has seen track success at the 2008 Olympics translate onto the road.

Olympic track hero Bradley Wiggins is a genuine Tour de France contender thanks to the strength of the ‘domestiques’ around him, among them Rotherham rider Ben Swift who grew up just a short time trial from the Simpson Museum.

Wiggins and Chris Froome both stood on the podium after the Vuelta Espana in August, one of the three grand tours of the summer, in a major step forward by Sky in only their third year.

Add Cavendish to Team Sky, as is looking increasingly likely following the disbanding of his prolific HTC outfit, and Britain will undoubtedly be ready to match and if not better the road cycling forces of Spain, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Australia and the United States.

Until now, Cavendish has been a lone British wolf in winning 20 stages of the Tour de France in the last four years.

HTC were built around the Manxman’s devastating finishing technique, with leadout riders like Matt Goss, Mark Renshaw and Bernie Eisel among the best in the world, setting him up for spint victory after sprint victory.

Add that finishing capability to Team Sky, with a growing leadout band including Swift, Geraint Thomas, Froome and now Richie Porte and potentially Eisel, who may also be recruited for 2012, and Cavendish could soon have more stage wins than anyone in Tour de France history.

His victory in Copenhagen last week was proof enough of how a good British team can work to get a countryman breasting the tape.

Cavendish, Wiggins and David Millar had been working on a strategy for that race for three years. And how well they executed it.

Millar has been for a while and will remain a key figure at American-based team Garmin-Cervelo, but put Cavendish and Wiggins together in a British-backed road team – a combination that in the past has not always seen eye to eye – and these win-at-all-costs cyclists could go on to dominate the sport for the next few years.

And with cycling growing in this country thanks to their success, it could at last prompt the opening of the floodgates that never materialised after Simpson’s world title 46 years ago.

“It’s taken a lot of work to get where we are,” Dave Brailsford, Team Sky and Great Britain’s performance director told the Yorkshire Post.

“To get two people on the podium at the Vuelta and a world road race champion is success in itself.

“We should always stop and reflect on what we’ve achieved.

“It’s nice to pause and say this is the best year ever for British road racing, which it is without doubt.

“But it bodes very well for the future and we should all be excited about that and looking forward to that.”

Nearly half a century on, Tommy Simpson’s wish is at last being carrried out.

British cycling was not ready to lead the world in the 1960s. It lacked the resources, the manpower and the direction.

It has all three at its disposal in the present day, and Cavendish’s victory last week could be the start of a golden age for the sport in this country.