The world champion, who will also aim to defend his rainbow bands in Glasgow next month, this afternoon confirmed his spot in Barcelona for the start of the Vuelta a España in late August.Īfter their two previous tussles at grand tours over the past year were abruptly curtailed by early abandons, Evenepoel is likely to go head-to-head once again with three-time winner Primož Roglič on the roads of Spain later this summer, as the Belgian star looks to retain the title he won for the first time last year. Of course, we all should have known that his narrow time trial victory at the Giro, and subsequent Covid withdrawal, wouldn’t be the last we’d see of Remco Evenepoel at the grand tours this season. Nos vemos en Barcelona! 🫡💪🏻 /yqy7Cy6Wyd Looking forward to a new battle on the beautiful Spanish roads! 🇪🇸🚀 I will be back and ready to defend my title in La Vuelta 2023!! 🔴🔥🐺 What do you reckon? Should Cav keep going for one final shot at 35? Or should he stick to his guns, and retire knowing he left the sport battling at the very highest level? The wisdom of that decision, if the 34-time stage winner does indeed make it, has been fiercely debated over the last few days, with the likes of Robbie McEwen noting on GCN that one more attempt at setting the record could be scuppered once again by one unfortunate moment, though Eddy Merckx himself said it would “be a shame” if the career of the greatest sprinter of all time was to end in disappointment, and said he hopes Cavendish will have one more crack at the Tour in 2024. I imagine when we all get over the disappointment for Cavendish himself and the big anti-climax we’ve just been served, that him being tied on 34 with Eddy Merckx forever now is actually perfect.

However, with Cav already announcing his retirement from the sport at the Giro in May, could the former world champion be swayed by Vino’s pleas to keep racing into 2024? We joked already about it yesterday evening.” “It would be nice if Mark comes back to the Tour for a 15th time and win that 35th stage. I crashed out in the Tour of 2011 but I came back to win Olympic Gold one year later. For sure, in my opinion, his career cannot end here.

“Now it’s too early to say something about his race programme. “I hope we will see him soon back in the race,” everyone’s favourite blood doping attacker said after Cavendish’s race-ending crash. As we reported yesterday, Astana top boss Alexander Vinokourov has already hinted that a possible contract extension for 2024 could be on the cards for the 38-year-old, citing his own comeback from a crash at the Tour in 2011 to, ahem, controversially win Olympic gold a year later as evidence that the peloton’s elder statesman can bounce back from such setbacks.

Final boss just shapes and beats