'Cavendish is breaking with the renewed XDS Astana' - Manx Missile's future in cycling in his own hands in 2025
Cycling
Mark Cavendish has had quite a few years in the peloton. He initially said he would retire in 2023 but then decided to postpone it after crashing out of the Tour de France. In 2024, he had the historic victory he sought at the Grand Boucle, number 35, but only in November did he officially confirm his retirement. None of the many roles he could take will be related to Astana.
Cavendish is eternally grateful for the confidence and support that the Kazakh team provided over these two seasons, which allowed the Manxman to continue his career at World Tour level and support him into breaking the stage win record at the French Grand Tour, officially inserting himself in the history books.
This was no simple feat, and after the Tour much debate began on what he would do after stepping away from the peloton. Amongst the biggest possibilities was to be a team ambassador for the team the same way that Alejandro Valverde continues to be for Movistar, amongst other examples in the peloton. Others was to continue in the team as support staff for it's sprinters, and the same had been rumoured for INEOS Grenadiers - who are, however, losing their sprinters Ethan Hayter and Elia Viviani.
With Cavendish's popularity - and nationality - it could be very plausible that he takes up work with race broadcasting, if he so desires, as several former pros have. This week he was confirmed to be present at the Tour Down Under next January as an ambassador, he could equally take gigs throughout the year in events, both race or brand related, and make a comfortable living out of it.
What Daniel Benson reports, straight from the team's training camp in Altea, Spain, is that Cavendish will most definitely not be connected to Astana anymore from next year onwards - the team has finally announced it's new Chinese title sponsor this Friday, and will be named XDS Astana Team from 2025 onwards.
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What do you think about XDS Astana Team new 2025 look? #XDSAstanaTeam #XDS #Biemme #newlook pic.twitter.com/VCfKuWL9Mh
— Astana Qazaqstan Team (@AstanaQazTeam) December 14, 2024
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- ohhh, i WISH!OCexile15-12-2024
- I am pretty sure both have won 10 races.Sweep15-12-2024
- Are you MV???Mistermaumau15-12-2024
- Don’t really understand the point of making a point of it, especially as he stands to get the same crowd without the extra cost. It could be any number of reasons, the first of which might be that after 12 years of it, maybe he wants to try something new?Mistermaumau15-12-2024
- Jan tratnik is a stupid man,very stupid indeed. No backbone, no wonder he goes around switching teams following Primoz like a lost puppy. Very stupid man. No aura at allSelle15-12-2024
- umm, i wasn’t “subliminally” suggesting anything about the effort level of wout and mathieu. those guys are training fanatics, duh. what’s DIFFERENT about the cx season from other sports is that guys like eli and michael ARE the ones at the top, racing to WIN, all season UNTIL the first day mathieu shows up, then all that is suddenly OVER. i honestly can’t think of another sport that has that kind of situation. where the top guys’ season all just goes down the drain EVERY YEAR with the return in mid to late season of ONE GUY.OCexile15-12-2024
- Yeah ok but this is the story of thousands ifnot millions of athletes across every sport, most train just as hard and sacrifice just as much but when it comes to the big time, there are always a couple better than you who everyone is going to want to see or discuss. Why should it be any different for level 2 than 3 or 6 or 20? The majority of fans and media rightly follow their own stories plus those of the very best. PS it’s kind of insulting (of MV) to subliminally suggest that MVDP and WVA don’t equally give their all for training and races, you don’t get to that level by taking it easy, even if it looks like it sometimes.Mistermaumau15-12-2024
- They better give him knee sliders for those downhill corners.
KerisVroom15-12-2024 - i know that virtually every pro who races with wout and mathieu likes or at least respects them, both in the road peloton and in cx. but as popular as they are amongst their peers, it’s gotta be just immensely frustrating for hard-working guys like vanthourenhout, lars and eli to deal with the staggering dominance of MVDP and WVA. given all the effort, the physical and emotional energy that gets poured into the goal of WINNING, it must be a tremendous psychological shock to the system EVERY SINGLE YEAR, YEAR AFTER YEAR to have your whole season, your whole mindset, all of your ambitions and expectations change with something akin to the flip of a switch the day that wout and mathieu decide to line up.OCexile15-12-2024
- This is absurd. Nobody is beating Pogi next season anyway. But this injury in December is far better to have in terms of TdF prep than his big crash last season.Veganpotter14-12-2024