"Mark has a chip on his shoulder," once opined his friend and rival David Millar of Mark Cavendish -- if so it acted like rocket fuel to propel him to extraordinary heights, especially on the Tour de France.
The 38-year-old from the Isle of Man, though, will no longer have that sense of grievance as he rides into retirement at the end of the season.
"I've lost the desire to prove people wrong," he told The Guardian in 2021.
By the time he retires he may have secured for himself the greatest number of stage wins in the Tour de France -- he is joint record holder on 34 with the sport's all-time great Eddy Merckx.
"In terms of pure sprinters he is the Tour de France's greatest ever at that discipline," Tour director Christian Prudhomme told AFP.
As for breaking the record he shares with 'The Cannibal', it seems the outside world is more interested than he is.
"Nah," he replied when asked by The Guardian whether it would mean anything to him.He was not just a one show pony either, being crowned road race world champion in 2011 and winning the Milan-San Remo in 2009.
Like Tour de France champions Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas, he also sparkled on the track -- winning three world titles in the Madison (2005, 2008 and 2016) and striking gold for the Isle of Man in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in the scratch.
The one empty space on his mantlepiece which he never filled is an Olympic title. Cavendish claimed silver in the omnium in the 2016 Games in Rio.
