Mark Cavendish is training in Greece with his coach Vasilis Anastopoulos as he prepares to return to racing at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Türkiye that begins in Antalya on Sunday.
The Manxman has not raced since falling ill at Milano-Torino on March 13 but appears motivated to get his final season back on track in Turkey and then the Tour de Hongrie in early May. The Tour of Türkiye listed Cavendish in the Astana Qazaqstan line-up, while Cavendish revealed he would ride the Tour de Hongrie instead of the Giro d’Italia in a video.
A stage victory in the Tour de France and the stage win record remains the ultimate goal of the season for Cavendish. However Astana Qazaqstan desperately also need to score ranking points if they are to defend their place amongst the 18 WorldTour for 2026-2028.
Cavendish will turn 39 on May 21 but seems motivated to suffer in training and racing. According to a series of posts on Instagram, he has mixed rides in the hills near Greece with motor pacing work behind a scooter driven by Anastopoulos. Cavendish spent a similar spell in Greece back in 2021 before going on to win four stages at the Tour de France.
Anastopoulos joined Astana Qazaqstan as Cavendish strengthened his sprint team within the Kazakhstan team. Mark Renshaw has a more important role as directeur sportif and Michael Mørkøv moved from Soudal-QuickStep as his trusted lead out man.
Cavendish announced his retirement during the 2023 Giro d’Italia but changed his mind after crashing out of the Tour de France just a day after finishing second in the sprint in Bordeaux. He has raced for 17 seasons, winning 163 races including Milan-San Remo and the world road race title in Copenhagen in 2011 but was keen to race on for a final season and a final Tour de France.
“Sprinting is not an addiction to me, not at all. Racing is, riding my bike is, but sprinting definitely not,” he said in a recent video interview with Road Code, the video platform created by the Velon teams.
“In a sprint I'm okay but before can be pretty terrified. It’s definitely not an addiction. It's what I do, it's how I’m built. I can sprint and it served me quite well in bike races. I can’t really complain.”
“I like sprinting because it's not just about how many watts you can put through a pedal.
“Sprinting holds onto that last bit of tactics that’s left. It’s about working it out, playing a game of chess, understanding your opponents and the conditions and the finish. It’s about putting it all together and working out the best way to plan to win. You can change how you win and I love that.
“Everything is focused on the race; there's no real fear, no real joy, no real emotion. It's quite methodical.”
Cavendish started the 2024 season well with a stage win in his first race of the year, the Tour Colombia, but then was slowed by illness.
The British sprinter took part in the eight-day Tour of Türkiye in 2023, when the race had an early October date, as he returned to racing after his crash and broken collarbone in the Tour de France.
Astana Qazaqstan is one of four WorldTour teams in the 2.HC, 1,253km race, which starts in Antalya on Sunday, April 21 and finishes a week later in Istanbul.
Bora-Hansgrohe, Alpecin-Deceuninck and DSM-Firmenich PostNL are the other three WorldTour teams participating. Other sprinters on the start list include Sam Welsford and Danny Van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe), Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich PostNL) and Aaron Gate (Burgos-BH).
