Britain’s Mark Cavendish will return to the road for the first time since the Rio Olympics when he lines up at the 13th Tour of Britain tomorrow.
Mark Cavendish after winning the first stage of the Tour de France earlier this year. Photo: SuperSport
He will be joined by the nucleus of DiData’s Tour de France team in Steve Cummings, Bernie Eisel and Mark Renshaw. Johann van Zyl and Jay Thomson complete the line-up for the South African team.
DiData won the race overall last year with Edvald Boasson Hagen, who will be absent from this year’s event.
Eisel, who will captain the team on the road, said this year’s Tour of Britain would probably be the toughest yet.
“The last stages have 3 000 to 4 000m of climbing, and that’s in Britain, so you know it’s just going to be up and down all day.”
“It will be very tough to control the race with six-man teams and I think we will see the overall lead changing hands many times. Semi stages are also always very hard,” said the Austrian.
“A super hard stage and a time trial on the same day, that is going to be a game changer. Let’s see if we can win one or two stages with Mark (Cavendish) and play a role in GC.”
The eight-stage tour concludes in London on September 11.
