cavendish began 2006 with the continental team, team sparkasse, a feeder squad for t-mobile team. in june, he won two stages and the points and sprint competitions in the tour of berlin. he rode for the isle of man on the track at the 2006 commonwealth games in melbourne, riding the scratch race. he lapped the field with three others: rob hayles; ashley hutchinson of australia; and james mccallum of scotland. he then beat these in the sprint to win gold for the isle of man. the race time was 23m 5s, an average 51.9 kilometres per hour (32.2 mph).