Honour for Isle of Man's greatest sporting hero
World champion Mark Cavendish features on a new set of stamps issued in the Isle of Man.
The set of seven stamps is being produced by Isle of Man Post Office and includes images of the 'Manx Missile' winning the 2011 World Road Race Championship and the green jersey in the 2011 Tour de France.
Scanning a smartphone or other mobile device over the £1.05 stamp of him in the rainbow jersey also makes the stamp appear to come to life and automatically display a video of him winning the world title in Copenhagen. The stamp issue is one of the first in the world to feature augmented reality.
Cavendish said: "I'm proud to feature in this stamp collection and delighted with the images which have been selected.
"It's a great honour for me personally, but it's also a reflection of the widespread interest in cycling now - and that's always great to see."
As Cavendish is the Isle of Man's greatest sporting hero the 38 pence stamp - the first in the set - features him celebrating winning gold for the island in the scratch race at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. For Isle of Man sportsmen and women the Commonwealth Games are the highest level of competition at which they can represent their country, and when Cavendish won in Melbourne he became only the second Isle of Man cyclist ever to win Commonwealth gold. Peter Buckley won the road race in 1966.
The 41 pence stamp shows his first victory as a professional at the 2007 Scheldeprijs Vlaanderen. In 2009 Cavendish produced a thrilling sprint finish to snatch victory in Italy's Milan-San Remo classic from Germany's Heinrich Haussler - and this win is illustrated on the 65 pence stamp. The 71 pence stamp shows Cavendish wearing the green jersey at the end of the 2011 Tour de France - he is the first rider from Britain or the Isle of Man ever to win the Tour's points classification.
At the World Road Race Championships in Copenhagen in October 2011, Cavendish became the first British rider to win the men's title since Tom Simpson in 1965. It was an historic moment for cycling in Britain, and the Isle of Man, and the image on the 80 pence stamp shows him crossing the finish line celebrating the greatest victory in his career to date. The £1.05 stamp shows him resplendent in the rainbow jersey of world champion. He signed for Team Sky for 2012 and the £1.16 stamp features an image of him winning the Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne semi-classic in Belgium in February.
The stamp issue goes on sale on June 19.
