“Sport has the power to inspire young people, to build self-esteem, confidence and leadership and to create extraordinary opportunities. Right To Play’s focus is both essential and unique and I’m fully behind their work.”
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Biography
Mark Cavendish, The Manx Missile, or Cav. No matter what you call him he’s one of the greatest cyclists on the planet. The 2011 World Champion and 2011 Tour de France Green Jersey winner has been a great supporter of Right To Play over the years. Having developed his career through the British Olympic Academy programme he has seen success both on the road and the track as World and Commonwealth Games Champion. Cav has an impressive 20 Tour de France stage victories to his name, and currently sits 6th on the all time list. He is poised to continue climbing up the ranks as he takes on the challenge of retaining the Green Jersey. And as if that wasn’t enough to deal with he is also favourite to win gold at the Olympic road race. Having been a finalist in the BBC sports personality of the year in both 2009 and 2010, he finally won the coveted prize in 2011 as well as being named sportsman of the year at the Sports Journalists' Awards. |
His support of Right To Play spans over three years; in 2009 he cycled the first stage of the annual Right To Play bike ride and he launched our 2012 bike ride. We greatly appreciate his support and we are proud to say that Mark Cavendish is an Athlete Ambassadors of Right To Play.
Cav talks about Right To Play
“It’s a known fact that everything I say is from the heart; everything I believe in is from the heart; I don’t do things for attention, commercial gain, or whatever,” Mark explained. “I first met Right To Play when T-Mobile changed to Highroad [in 2007 – ed] and Right To Play came along. I wasn’t interested in putting my name to a charity or anything, but I bought into Right To Play straight away for what they do."
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“So it wasn’t just a matter of them working on the team that I was working on, I wanted to know what; and I’ve always been a massive fan of what they do to support kids. I think it’s just so easy sometimes to look at a charity and you can’t really relate to it… but with Right To Play I could. Helping underprivileged children through sport is a really good thing to do."
“There’s a story I heard; I think it was in Sierra Leone, and they went to a little girl whose parents had both been killed, and she hadn’t talked for a year. I can’t remember who it was, but they just rolled a ball to her; she looked at the ball, looked up, and she pushed the ball back; then he pushed it back again, she looked and she pushed it back. It kept on for a while; it wasn’t just after that one thing but in time she was talking, and she just integrated back into life.”“ |
Listen to Cav talking about Right To Play
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"You can actually see what it’s doing, you can see that things can be helped through sport, and that’s why – I didn’t buy into it – I could see the benefits of it, and the positive influence it had."
“I’ve been a massive supporter ever since; on a personal level, not just through the team.”
Cav with John Inverdale at the Right To Play 2012 Bike Ride launch
Find out more about Mark by visiting his website: www.markcavendish.co.uk or follow him on Twitter or Facebook.