He was in fact in Belgium on Saturday to collect the prestigious International Flandrian of the Year prize and then travelled to Italy on Monday for the Gran Gala Ciclistico in Conegliano, near Venice.

In a ceremony broadcast live on Belgian television and organised by newspaper Het Nieuwsblad, a jury of team managers, sports directors and media personalities voted for Cavendish as top international cyclist of the year.

'It's a tremendous honour to get this award. It's something really important to me,' said Mark. 'You just look at the names of the people who've got this prize before, like Fabian Cancellara last year, and you can see how special it really is.

'As a kid I would watch Belgiiu bike races for hours on TV and I love racing there now because the Belgians have a real appreciation for cycling and cyclists. But I could never have dreamed of getting an award like this one day. It's a real honour to receive it.'

At the Gran Gala Ciclistico in Italy, images of Cavendish's Milan-San Remo victory were played on a huge screen as he stood alongside his Team Columbia directeur sportif Valerio Piva, who collected an award for the team's 86 victories during 2009.

As well as winning Milan-San Remo this year, Cavendish won six stages of this year's Tour de France, three stages of the Giro d'Italia and 23 professional wins in total.