Rivals emphasise importance of recovery prior to Tour, but Cavendish will keep going
Already dominating the sprints in the Giro d’Italia and clocking up his third win yesterday, Mark Cavendish’s competition has diminished by three today as his former HTC Highroad leadout men Mark Renshaw and Matt Goss have withdrawn from the race, as is Saxo Bank SunGard’s Juan Jose Haedo.
While Cavendish has said that he wants to keep going until the end of the race in Milan, chasing more sprint wins plus the points classification, his rivals want to ensure they are fresh for the Tour de France and so will rest up prior to chasing their next targets.
“I’ve decided that I won’t continue in the Giro this year. At this stage I’ve already done a lot of racing with the Tour of Turkey prior to the Giro, and I think the big objectives are still to come,” Renshaw said in the video below. “I am very happy with what I’ve taken from the Giro with the third place and also two other top tens. That’s promising for the future and with the Tour de France and Tour de Suisse coming up, I think they are some big objectives.”
Renshaw's third place yesterday was his best result thus far in the race. However with just two sprints left in the race and the first of those not coming until next Thursday, he's resisted the temptation to soldier it out and try to pick up a win.
Goss has been the most successful of the three withdrawing sprinters, beating Haedo to win stage three after Cavendish was tangled up in a crash. However he himself was involved in a later crash and hasn’t been at full strength. Despite that, the team tried to set things up again yesterday, when he ended up sixth into Cevere.
“We knew Gossy wasn’t 100%, but we decided we wanted one more sprint practice,” said directeur sportif Matt White. “The boys did a very good leadout. Their timing was perfect. You could see in the sprint that Goss wasn’t his normal self, but it wasn’t about the result today. It was about the process, and I’m very happy with the progress the guys have made since we started to work on the train.”
White underlined that he was satisfied with what Goss achieved at the race, and said that withdrawing early isn’t a setback. “We achieved a big goal winning a stage with Matt,” he said. “It’s obvious after his crash that he’s not at his best. The next part of the Giro is not the most optimal place for him to recuperate and start aiming for his goals in the second part of the season, so we have taken the decision to end his Giro here. In fact, the original plan was to have him exit after this first part of the race.”
Team-mate Brett Lancaster will also exit at this point, resting up prior to his next races.
As for Haedo, Saxo Bank team owner Bjarne Riis made the call to have him stop early. The team will ride the Tour de France without Alberto Contador and will need to aim for stage wins in other ways. If Haedo is on top form there, Riis will hope that he manages to pick up a stage victory.
The Giro d’Italia continues today with the hardest mountain stage thus far. Very difficult weather is forecast en route to the summit finish at Cervinia, meaning that Cavendish will be digging deep as his fellow sprinters head home.
The results of the Tour de France and Olympic Games will show which tactic – staying or withdrawing – was the correct one.