Mark Cavendish

“The Olympics is where you see out of this world performances, isn't it?”

“I don't listen to any music when I train - I do it outdoors, and I'm not a fan of iPods on bikes.”

“Lance Armstrong won seven Tours, that's 147 days of racing, and he never had a puncture or a mechanical. You can really minimise your chances of a mistake if you do everything right.”

“You can only pre-plan stuff to a certain degree because there are so many variables - road conditions, weather conditions, mechanicals... You have an idea of whose wheel you want to be on.”

“Psychological edge is massive in sprinting.”

“Track and road cycling are very different things. It is easy to look at them both as cycling but going from the road to the track is like asking Andy Murray to play squash: yes, it's a racket sport like tennis, but it's not the same.”

“The Belgian people, they're so happy.”

“I'm going to do the Commonwealth Games for no other reason than national pride. It's something special getting to ride for the Isle of Man.”

“I don't like being in London too long, because everybody's just looking straight forward, at nobody else. That freaks me out a little bit.”

“I want to provide the best possible life for my daughter. I want her to be so proud of me. You know, I never rode just for myself. I did it for my team as well. But this feels different. This feels like I'm riding my heart out for her.”

“I'm a fan of motorsport and a fan of McLaren and I was lucky to work with the company on a small scale across my career but to be able to race now with that brand on my jersey, it's pretty special. I still have to rein in my fanboy attitude sometimes.”

“I used to walk down a street and nobody would notice me. Now, I get stopped all the time; people saying, 'well done'. It makes me really, really proud to have done my bit to help make cycling a little bit more popular.”

“Once you can accept that you have a mental illness, that is when you can work on it.”

“I use an inhaler myself and have done since I was 15.”

“The Tour de France is ridiculously hard.”

“If somebody had told me as a kid that I would win 30 stages of the Tour de France I probably wouldn't have imagined it. I probably imagined I could do it - I don't lack confidence - but at the end of the day one Tour de France stage win can make a rider's career.”

“What keeps athletes going is the optimism we are going to be able to compete again.”

“I never think: 'If I crash, I'm going to hurt myself.' I might think: 'If I crash, I'm not going to win.' Everything's about that finish line.”

“I learned from BMX and skateboarding how to take a fall.”

“All that matters is to be first across the line.”