‘Heartbroken’ Cavendish left out of Tour
Dimension Data decision puts his future in doubt Briton insists he was in ‘perfect place’ to ride
Mark Cavendish declared himself “absolutely heartbroken” last night after he was excluded from Team Dimension Data’s squad for the Tour de France which begins in Brussels on Saturday, a decision which places the Manx rider’s future in serious doubt.
Cavendish, 34, has not won a race for 16 months and in that respect the decision is not earthshattering. However, after two injury and illness-ravaged seasons, he said he felt he was in the “perfect place” to challenge for victories again.
He had trained all winter in Majorca, including on the track, a discipline which has traditionally helped him to unlock his best road form. And he was certainly very much under the impression that he was going to be selected for his 13th consecutive Tour.
Cavendish recently completed a three-week block of training at altitude in Austria before coming down to compete in the national road race championships in Norfolk last Sunday.
It is understood that Dimension Data’s performance director, Rolf Aldag, was keen to include Cavendish in the team, but was eventually overruled by team principal Doug Ryder, whose relations with his star rider have been strained for a while. The press release announcing Dimension Data’s Tour line-up, which ran to some 1,200 words, did not once mention Cavendish’s name.
Whatever the reasons, Cavendish’s exclusion represents a huge blow to his hopes of one day surpassing Eddy Merckx’s Tour stage record of 34 wins.
Cavendish has been on 30 wins since 2016. He will be 35 by the time next summer’s Tour rolls around and where this leaves his future is unclear. Certainly not with Dimension Data.
The South African team later issued a statement in response to queries, saying that selection had been “highly competitive”, that there had been “a number of different preferences of the final squad make up” and admitting that Ryder had made the final call.
Ryder can, not unreasonably, point to the fact that Cavendish has not won a race since stage three of last year’s Dubai Tour and say that he felt his team were better served