Mark Cavendish has not ruled out racing at this year’s Tour de France but said he would do “what’s best for the team” after his Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl team-mate Fabio Jakobsen claimed he would be the team’s lead sprinter in France this summer, with Cavendish instead riding the Giro d’Italia.
Cavendish, 36, rolled back the years in astonish-ing fashion last year after receiving an 11th hour call-up to cycling’s biggest race following an injury to Irishman Sam Bennett.
Having not won a race in almost three years, and having battled Epstein-Barr virus and clinical depression for much of that pe-riod, Cavendish claimed the green jersey and four individual stage wins to draw level with Eddy Merckx on 34 wins.
His chances of adding to that tally this summer, by which time he will be 37, may depend on Ja-kobsen, the young Dutch rider who has himself battled back from serious injury.
Jakobsen was placed in a medically induced coma for two days and underwent several recon-structive surgeries to his face following an horrific crash at the Tour of Poland in 2020. —AFP
