Netflix has announced it will release a documentary feature profiling Mark Cavendish on 2 August 2023. The announcement comes on the eve of Cavendish’s final Tour de France ahead of his retirement from professional racing.
Mark Cavendish: Never Enough will look back at the Manx Missile’s career with Netflix stating it will chart “the rise, fall and resurrection of a genuine sporting great”.
Directed by Alex Kiehl and produced by David Tryhorn, Netflix says the film has exclusive access to Cavendish, his wife Peta, his teammates and coaches.
An unexpected comeback?
Netflix hasn’t revealed a great deal of information about Mark Cavendish: Never Enough just yet, but from its blurb for the film, we can assume the film will hinge around the last 7 years of Cavendish’s career.
Netflix explains how in 2016 Cavendish needed just four stage wins at the Tour de France to equal Eddy Mercx’s record of 34-stage wins, but instead, Cavendish went through five years of well-documented illness, injury and depression.
The 2021 Tour de France saw Cavendish equal Merckx’s 34 wins and – after not being selected for the Grand Boucle in 2022 – this year’s edition of the race is the last opportunity he has to claim the record.
Netflix describes Cavendish’s story as “one of the most inspiring and unexpected comebacks in sporting history.”
A teaser trailer released on social media shows Mark Cavendish, covered in grime, expressing frustration after a race.
The teaser trailer also shows analysis from Lance Armstrong who describes how he thinks Cavendish’s “time has come and gone.”
Netflix’s second cycling documentary
Mark Cavendish: Never Enough follows Netflix’s first cycling documentary, Tour de France: Unchained, which was finally released in June.
Tour de France: Unchained was first announced in March 2022 and since then it has received plenty of attention, with every trailer or clip creating a whirl of excitement among the cycling community.
A documentary about one of Britain’s most successful and lauded cyclists will likely be met with similar fanfare. This time, however, we won’t have to wait quite so long to watch it.
