Patrick Lefevere has outlined his Deceuninck-QuickStep team’s sprinting options for the Tour de France, expressing that 2020 environmentally friendly jersey Sam Bennett will love a entire dash teach but noting that a return to the greatest race of the 12 months is not on the menu for Mark Cavendish.
The Manxman, who has 30 Tour phase wins to his name, returned to the Belgian squad this year after shelling out 5 a long time at Dimension Knowledge and Bahrain-McLaren. He has amazed so considerably in 2021, picking up a number of podium places right before profitable four dash stages at April’s Tour of Turkey.
Despite Cavendish’s resurgence – only six adult males have extra wins this calendar year – however, he will not likely be at the Tour de France.
“The Tour is possibly as well really hard for him now,” Patrick Lefevere said in an interview with Italian web-site Bici.Professional.
“Mark has performed a few races. He is also been unlucky simply because some of the race he was intended to do had been cancelled. He retired on phase 3 of the Vuelta a Andalucía expressing it wasn’t a race for sprinters and then André Greipel won the next working day.”
Sam Bennett, having said that, will be heading to the Tour for the fourth time and must once yet again be accompanied by the team’s top rated-stage dash train, including Michael Mørkøv, Tim Declercq, and Kasper Asgreen.
The Irishman, who is set to depart the workforce at the close of 2021 soon after failing to achieve a new offer with Lefevere, has seven wins on his palmarès this year and will be hunting to add to his two stage wins previous summertime as well as protect the maillot verde towards the likes of Peter Sagan and Caleb Ewan.
Lefevere reported that the existence of what has been the quickest dash train in the peloton in recent several years will take some pressure off the team’s Tour chief, entire world winner Julian Alaphiliippe, incorporating that Fabio Jakobsen will be the team’s major sprinter in 2022, alternatively than signing up a new sprinter.
“Bennett and his coach [will race], which will choose a good deal of force off Alaphilippe, so he will have much more independence. It will be Sam’s final year with us, and there are rumours he will go back again to Bora-Hansgrohe, but there is no certainty yet.
“For subsequent 12 months we will count on Fabio Jakobsen’s sprints mainly because I am certain his comeback will be a achievement.”
Alaphilippe hasn’t raced considering that using next place at Liège-Bastogne-Liège again in late April but is established to return to the peloton at the Tour de Suisse following week.
Set to turn out to be a father this summer time, the Frenchman is opting to skip the Tokyo Olympics a 7 days after the Tour ends. He’ll as an alternative put total concentration on Le Grand Boucle and a rainbow jersey defence in Flanders in late September.
“He’s about to turn into a father and needs to be there,” Lefevere mentioned about Alaphilippe’s option to skip the Olympics. “And also, for the reason that he wishes to do perfectly at the Tour. He is altered his program.
“He’s just come down from [training camp at] Sierra Nevada and he’ll do the Tour de Suisse in its place of the Critérium du Dauphiné, then the Countrywide Championships and the Tour.
“I advised him that I hope he wins 3 much more Globe Championships, but the working experience of racing the Tour in the rainbow jersey is unrepeatable for now. He’ll go to France to do Alaphilippe-like matters and you will see that he will find himself in the basic classification as effectively.