Team Dimension Data principal Douglas Ryder underlined that Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday on July 18 will make their fourth participation to the Tour de France even more special, even though it’ll be stage 11 from Albertville to La Rosière in the Alps, not exactly a race for their star rider Mark Cavendish to shine. But the 33 year old British sprinter has plenty of space earlier on to try and equal the all-time record of 34 Tour de France stage victories that belongs to Eddy Merckx. He’s got 30 under his belt. “Physically, I have pretty much won every race I could so the only target left is to reach that great number, I’ll keep trying before the end of my career, that’s for sure”, admitted the Manxman who left the race after crashing heavily on stage 4 last year. “I wasn’t the first person to have an injury. I just tried and deal with it. But 2017 is in the past. I’ve been injured again this year. Now I’m in my best form of the year. I have a strong team to get some result at Tour de France. The yellow jersey to be awarded to stage 1 winner this year [like two years ago] isn’t a factor but we’ll try and win that stage. The sprinting field is incredibly stronger because of the amount of depth in sprinting teams that has come up. The green jersey isn’t a goal for me. It hasn’t been my thing for a few years, since Peter Sagan came along. It’s not worth putting your eggs in a non-reachable goal.”
South Africa’s Jay Thompson is a Tour de France debutant at the age of 32. He fills the shoes of Stephen Cummings who won the team’s first ever Tour de France stage on Mandela Day (July 18) in Mende where stage 14 will end this year.
