Sir Mark Cavendish said it was “nice to be appreciated” after it was confirmed that he will be awarded the lifetime achievement award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show on Tuesday.

Eyebrows were raised after Cavendish, 39, missed out on the six-person shortlist unveiled last week. But the BBC now says that the Manxman, who raced for the final time in Singapore last month, will be honoured on stage in Media City in Salford.

Cavendish postponed his retirement, which had been planned for the end of 2023, to have one last crack at the all-time Tour de France stage winners’ record this summer. He successfully achieved his goal, claiming the 35th Tour stage win of his career on stage five of this year’s race, lifting him one clear of Belgian great Eddy Merckx.

That triumph marked the 165th win of Cavendish’s professional career and came 16 years after his first Tour stage win way back in 2008.

“That’s the thing I’m most proud of – the longevity in terms of my competitiveness,” Cavendish told Telegraph Sport. “It’s mad to think it has been 13 years since I won Sports Personality in 2011.”

That victory came at the end of extraordinary year for cycling’s greatest ever sprinter, a year in which Cavendish claimed five stage wins at the Tour, including the final stage in Paris for the third time in a row, plus the green jersey awarded to the Tour’s top points scorer, before going on to become the first British male rider since Tom Simpson in 1965 to win the World Road Race Championships.

This year was relatively slim pickings by comparison. But Cavendish’s achievement in coming back to the Tour yet again, at the age of 39, having spent years battling illness, injuries and depression before his first big comeback in 2021, and then having been dropped by his team in 2022 before crashing out in 2023, was nevertheless extraordinary.

Cavendish said there was little point wasting time thinking about whether he ought to have been on the six-person shortlist for the main BBC award, which this year consists of athlete Keely Hodgkinson, darts player Luke Littler, footballer Jude Bellingham, cricketer Joe Root, para-cyclist Sarah Storey and triathlete Alex Yee.

“I spent my entire career competing objectively,” he said. “It’s black and white where you finish. Everything I did was up to me, give or take external factors. This is different in that it’s subjective and I’m well aware that it’s out of my control. You can be happy or unhappy about it, but you can’t change it. Likewise with my knighthood earlier this year, it’s a subjective decision, you know?

“Everyone on that list has done amazing things this year. And it’s very nice to be recognised [for the lifetime achievement award]. To be appreciated for what you do.”

Previous winners of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement award include Billie Jean King, Pele, Sir Bobby Charlton, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, David Beckham, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Chris Hoy, Simone Biles, Usain Bolt and last year’s winner Sir Kenny Dalglish.

Cavendish is leaving his team Astana at the end of December and has not yet decided what he will do next. It had been thought that he might stay with the Kazakhstan team, who have just announced a big partnership with Chinese bike manufacturer XDS. Indeed it is understood Cavendish was instrumental in bringing in that investment. But he hinted that the fit was not right for him and suggested he wanted a more hands-on role in whatever he did next.

Cavendish, who was rumoured to be in talks over a management role at Ineos Grenadiers, even hinted at running a team himself. He said he was exploring a number of opportunities and wanted to leverage the knowledge and contacts built up over two decades as a professional. “Fundamentally, I want to build something,” he said.