Cycling: Cavendish will race in 2023 with Astana. On Monday he retires in Spain

Mark Cavendish will race in 2023 with Astana, the Kazakh team of the WorldTour directed by Alexander Vinokourov and Beppe Martinelli. The agreement in these hours, after the negotiation was born in the last few days and had an impetuous acceleration. Left without a contract after the experience with Quick Step, Cavendish at almost 38 years old (he will celebrate them in May) and after 18 seasons as a professional had one goal: to race the Tour de France in 2023 to try to win a stage and thus overcome the stage record (34) which he shares with Eddy Merckx. He dismissed the hypothesis of B&B Hotels, the French team that would have guaranteed him an invitation to the Tour, at which point only a WorldTour lineup could have secured him the right to race in France.

Negotiation

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General manager Alexander Vinokourov jumped the ball early and called Cavendish. “You want to win and I want to win: ours is a bet to be won together,” the powerful Kazakh leader told him. Let’s not forget that Astana was Vincenzo Nibali’s “Team”, the one with which he won everything: two Giri d’Italia (2013 and 2016), the 2016 Tour de France, the 2015 Giro di Lombardia. Cavendish did not missed the opportunity: tomorrow the Briton will fly to Calpe, in Spain, where Astana is in training camp. The bike with which he raced in 2022, the Specialized, he had left with the Quick Step mechanics (the Belgian team is also in retreat in this area of ​​Spain), and tomorrow it will be taken over by Tosello, the head of the mechanics of the ‘Astana: the new bicycle by Wilier Triestina, the Vicenza-based company that equips Astana, will be immediately prepared for Cav with its measurements.

backstory

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The commitment of Wilier of the Gastaldello family in the signing of Cavendish was not secondary. Vincenzo Nibali ended his career with Wilier, and the Italian company absolutely needed an international testimonial of worldwide value, and Cavendish is just that. At the table with Vinokourov, Gastaldello guaranteed full financial support to close the deal. And with the British sprinter from the Isle of Man another sprinter will also arrive, the Dutch Cees Bol, formerly at DSM, who, like Cavendish, was due to go to the French B&B Hotels.

companions

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Obviously, the “train” to launch Cavendish in the sprint must be built, but Astana has high-level long distance riders, such as Luis Leon Sanchez, Boaro, Gruzdev and Zeits, plus Battistella, Moscon and Davide Martinelli. In any case, Mark Cavendish’s bet is the gift under the tree for cycling enthusiasts. At 37, the Briton boasts 161 victories, none like him among active riders. He was world champion in Copenhagen 2011, he won the Milano-Sanremo 2009; then 34 stages at the Tour de France, 16 at the Giro d’Italia and 3 at the Vuelta. His career couldn’t end like this.