Mark Cavendish has been left devastated after missing out on selection for the Tour de France. The 30-time Tour stage winner will not be on the start line of the Tour for the first time since making his debut in 2007 after being left out of Team Dimension Data’s eight-strong squad.
“I’m absolutely heart-broken by the decision that means I won’t be @letour this year,” tweeted Cavendish. “As I have done for my entire career, I targeted a specific time to be at peak form. After a long, difficult fight back from trying to compete for the whole of last season with Epstein-Barr virus and after following a specific training programme to peak in July, I feel I was in the perfect place.”
3/4 training program to peak in July, I feel I was in the perfect place.
— Mark Cavendish (@MarkCavendish) July 2, 2019
Nevertheless, I truly came to @teamdidata with the purpose of making a difference, by mobilising entire communities in Africa with bicycles through our incredible charity @Quebuka.
It is understood that Dimension Data’s head of performance, Rolf Aldag, wanted to select Cavendish but was overruled by the team principal, Doug Ryder, who instead made the final call on a squad which includes Britain’s Steve Cummings, 38, and the Danish rider Lars Bak, 39.
The decision has come as a shock to the 34-year-old Cavendish, who believed he had done all that was asked of him to prove his fitness and felt in himself that he was in the sort of form that took him to four stage wins in 2016.
Cavendish competed in the British national road race on Sunday, finishing 22nd after completing an altitude camp in Austria last week which was a specific part of his Tour preparation.
Though he has been short of results on the road this season – his best so far a third place on stage three at the Tour of Turkey in April – the Manxman has deliberately limited his racing to focus on training blocks designed to bring him to peak form for the Tour. The results of that were seemingly enough to persuade Aldag that Cavendish should head to Brussels for the Grand Départ this weekend, but not Ryder.
While Ryder has set a goal of transitioning the South African-registered team towards one capable of challenging in the general classification in the near future, the team’s most likely rider, Louis Meintjes, is also absent with a fractured wrist sustained in the Tour of California in May.
The squad announcement did not mention Cavendish, but a later statement said: “Selection for our Tour squad was a highly competitive process and one in which a panel weighed up the options provided to us not only by Mark but indeed all of our riders.
“As you’d expect among a selection panel, there were a number of different preferences of the final squad makeup with our team principal, Doug Ryder, making the final decision on it. This selection is one the team believes will be best suited to meet the goals set out for the race.”