Mark Cavendish has known significant success in the Tour de Suisse in his career, but this time round the British sprinter will be primarily looking to build his climbing form for the Tour de france, says Astana Qazaqstan team manager Alexander Vinokourov.
Cavendish will start the Tour de Suisse on Sunday alongside various key elements of his sprint train including leadout men Michael Morkov and Cees Bol.
However, on an ultra-mountainous eight-day race with only two stages with even a minimal possibility of a bunch sprint, Astana will not be expecting the Briton to target them as his key goals next week.
The Tour de Suisse starts Sunday with a 4.7 kilometre time trial. Stage 2 and 3 could end in bunch sprints, but although Astana are not ruling out going for them with Cavendish by any means, their flat finishes are closely preceded by cat. 3 climbs, likely splitting the peloton. Stages four through to eight are all major summit finishes, with Sunday’s showdown stage an uphill time trial.
“Mark is doing very well in training, but the first week of the Tour de France is already very mountainous, so we want him to be in as good a climbing shape as possible,” team manager Alexander Vinokourov told Cyclingnews on Friday.
“We want the whole Tour team to test themselves in that area.”
Cavendish and the other riders likely selected for the Tour have just come off a three week altitude training camp, Vinokourov said, which went very well. “They’re in good health and motivated and that’s the most important thing.”
In the Tour de Suisse, “If they can over the climbs for the sprints, great. If not, then it’s training for the mountains.”
“They’ve done a great training camp too, and in three weeks time we’ll see the benefits of that.”
Cavendish has taken two wins this year, one in the TourColombia in the early season, and another, more recently in the Tour de Hongrie “and that’s great for everybody, it’s extra motivation,” says Vinokourov.
Astana Qazaqstan have already had some notable success this week, with Nicolas Vinokourov, son of Alexander, securing the U-23 TT title in the Asian Road Championships, giving the team a welcome morale boost as it heads towards the key dates of the summer.
The definitive lineup of team for the Tour de France will be decided after the Tour de Suisse, Vinokourov said. “We’ve already got seven guys in the roster for sure, right now it’s just a question of the last name.”
