In the end - and at the 11th hour - Team Dimension Data decided to ignore reputation and leave Mark Cavendish out of this year’s Tour de France. Their talisman, a rider who has amassed 30 Tour stage wins in a long and glittering career, will sit on the sofa this July for the first time in over a decade. Only time will tell if team owner Doug Ryder has made the right decision.
Of little dispute is that, despite aging legs, a lack of form, and unpredictability in terms of surviving the mountains, Cavendish remains a box office name.
His participation even at the Grand Départ would have generated headlines, not just in the United Kingdom but across the cycling world. The Brussels fanfare and the comparisons to Eddy Merckx’s stage win record would have seen to that.
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Instead, Ryder has seemingly decided to shun a freebie of press coverage and base his decision over Cavendish on purely racing aspects - facts, rather than impressions, as football manager Rafa Benitez might call them. Ryder certainly has evidence to back his call. He will point to a dossier of evidence that pinpoints a rider’s decline and lack of results. However, whatever metrics Ryder has used to justify his decision have not been implemented across the rest of the team.
Last year, at the age of 33, Cavendish was afforded a stay of execution with a one-year deal that was only hammered out after Ryder had spent most of the team’s budget on the 2018 Amstel Gold Race podium. The team certainly needed reinvigorating and, with a 12-month extended tenure, Cavendish was given the chance to prove that his 2017 and 2018 health problems were behind him.
However, despite declaring he was over his bout of Epstein Barr Virus at May’s Tour of California, the results never came. He failed to contest a single sprint in the Golden State before quitting on the final day. He then suffered through the Tour of Slovenia without ever breaking into the top 50. The race had plenty of challenging climbs, and to some within Dimension Data, the sprinter looked to be on track. But cycling is very much a market built on results, and recent results are the most sought-after currency.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/snubbed-for-tour-de-france-is-this-the-end-for-mark-cavendish
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