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Mark Cavendish is left OUT of Team Dimension Data's Tour de France squad

The Manx sprinter, with 30 individual Tour de France stages to his name, was not included in Dimension Data's eight-man squad announced this morning...

Mark Cavendish will not take part in the Tour de France for the first time since 2006, after Team Dimension Data revealed this morning that their eight-man squad will not include the Manx sprinter.

With 30 individual stage wins to his name and a 2011 points classification victory, Cavendish is still hunting down the all-time record of 34 stage wins, held by Eddy Merckx; however it's now been confirmed that he won't be able to make an attempt to close the gap this year. He's lined up at every edition of Le Tour since 2007, and of those twelve years he only failed to win stages in 2014, 2017 and 2018.  

Cavendish has struggled to return to his peak form after being diagnosed with the Epstein-Barr Virus, with no victories at any of his 2019 race appearances. He finished 22nd at the National Road Race Championships last week. 

The riders chosen for Dimension Data's eight-man Tour de France roster are Edvald Boasson Hagen, Stephen Cummings, Reinardt Janse v. Rensburg, Michael Valgren, Roman Kreuziger, Giacomo Nizzolo, Ben King and Lars Bak. 

They will likely look to Boasson Hagen and Nizzolo for sprint stage wins, the former having won three Tour stages and the latter winning a stage at the Tour of Slovenia last month. 

Steve Cummings is perhaps the least obvious inclusion, commenting: “I was pleasantly surprised about the Tour selection, I wasn’t expecting that. I’m very grateful to the team again for the opportunity to go to the Tour and I’m looking forward to the challenge. I think it’s a pretty open Tour, there are a lot of chances to be aggressive and I think it suits the team that we have very well and I hope that we can have a great July and everyone can be proud of us.”

 

Arriving at road.cc in 2017 via 220 Triathlon Magazine, Jack dipped his toe in most jobs on the site and over at eBikeTips before being named the new editor of road.cc in 2020, much to his surprise. His cycling life began during his students days, when he cobbled together a few hundred quid off the back of a hard winter selling hats (long story) and bought his first road bike - a Trek 1.1 that was quickly relegated to winter steed, before it was sadly pinched a few years later. Creatively replacing it with a Trek 1.2, Jack mostly rides this bike around local cycle paths nowadays, but when he wants to get the racer out and be competitive his preferred events are time trials, sportives, triathlons and pogo sticking - the latter being another long story.  

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6 comments

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Organon | 4 years ago
1 like

"and of those twelve years he only failed to win stages in 2014, 2017 and 2018." Notice any connection between two of these dates? Sorry Cav, but you won't be taking this record. You have all those stages and Paris, the Green Jersey, the World Championship.  Time to refocus on another goal like the Olympics. Look at what Wiggo did in the last couple of years. We are in the Endgame now...

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BehindTheBikesheds | 4 years ago
0 likes

Cav thought he was heading in the right direction to peak at the Tour.

https://twitter.com/MarkCavendish/status/1146111625914703873

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yupiteru | 4 years ago
0 likes

Like my grandmother used to say before she croaked it, 'Nobody likes a fairy when they're old'.

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Rick_Rude | 4 years ago
0 likes

Such is elite sport. You rise, you plateau and then you fall. Getting out at the right time is the tricky part.

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Carax | 4 years ago
7 likes

Gutted for him. Makes sense, he's been out of sorts for a few years, but still such a shame. 

 

I had the same illness. It's not pleasant. 

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fixation80 | 4 years ago
10 likes

So sorry to hear this, training hard to regain fitness and seemingly not getting there must mess with the head as well. I hope he comes through this difficult time.

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