MARK CAVENDISH hopes to bounce back from his Harrogate horror last year by returning to winning ways at the Tour de France.
The 30-year-old Manxman has 25 stage wins to his name as he begins his ninth Tour today but failed to add to the total in 2014 after crashing out on the first stage between Leeds and his mother's home town of Harrogate.
"I was in incredible form and to sit at home and watch the race wasn't easy," Cavendish said.
"We've looked at trying to come into the Tour de France in the same form I was in last year.
"I knew if I could do the same kind of lead-up to this year's Tour then I'd be in similar condition."
Cavendish is out of contract with Etixx-QuickStep at the end of the year and the Tour could be pivotal in determining what the future holds.
His hopes of adding to his tally improved when Marcel Kittel, whose win in Harrogate was one of eight stage successes in the last two years, was not selected by his Giant-Alpecin team following an illness-plagued season.
Only Eddy Merckx, with 34, and Bernard Hinault, with 28, are ahead of Cavendish in the rankings of Tour stage wins.
The Briton won four in 2008, six in 2009, five in 2010 and 2011 and three and two in 2012 and 2013, respectively, and might expect to climb above Hinault, a five-time Tour winner.
"I'd like to add more than one stage," Cavendish added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article