Mark Cavendish faces an uncertain future. © APA/afp / MARCO BERTORELLO

The uncertain future of Mark Cavendish

After his exit from the Tour de France, cycling star Mark Cavendish underwent successful surgery and will be out for weeks.

July 13, 2023

From: dpa

“It will take longer than the couple of weeks with a broken collarbone due to screws from a previous operation,” said the Briton. The 38-year-old did not give an exact downtime. Cavendish had surgery on Wednesday. Shoulder specialist Lennard Funk in Manchester inserted a plate on the broken collarbone.

The former world champion also didn't say a word about his future. Cavendish wanted to achieve his 35th stage win in this year's Tour and thus become the sole record holder ahead of Eddy Merckx. However, a crash on the eighth stage to Limoges forced him to retire. His Astana team boss Alexander Vinokurov then offered him to ride for another year and take part in the tour again. “We joked about it that evening,” said the former Telekom professional after the Cavendish exit. However, the decision rests with the sprinter.

Astana wants to convince him to continue

He thanked him for the worldwide support after his task. “It was obviously not the ideal way to end the tour. But that’s part of the beauty and brutality of cycling,” Cavendish said. The sympathy for his fate gave him a lot of courage.

After his contract with QuickStep ended, Cavendish moved to Astana in order to be able to take part in the tour. The Kazakh racing team lined up almost an entire team around the “Manx Missile”. At the end of May, Cavendish announced during the Giro d'Italia that he wanted to end his career in the fall. A few days later he won the last stage of the Giro with a big lead in the sprint. In the Tour he was close on the seventh stage in Bordeaux, but while in the lead he had a problem with the gears a few meters before the finish and he came second.