"It’s going to be very difficult for Mark to get that stage win" - Sean Kelly doesn't think Cavendish's decision to return was the right call

Mark Cavendish has made the decision to postpone his retirement and return in 2024 for one final season and one last crack at taking a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win. For Irish legend Sean Kelly though, the choice may have been a mistake.

"Well I don’t think that it’s the right decision for Cavendish to come back but he wants to go for the record," the 67-year-old, five-time Tour de France stage winner in his own right, told GCN. “If a rider is hungry and he wants the record then I can understand it but it’s hard to do all that training over the winter, and all those build-up races. Then you’ve got the young guys coming in, so I think that it’s going to be very difficult for Mark to get that stage win. I see it being very difficult."

Although he disagrees with 'the Manx Missile's' decision, Kelly understands why the lure of a record-breaking stage win has proven tough to shake off. if he’s motivated, that’s what it is about. I just find it hard to see where he can have that hunger. If it was me, I wouldn’t have come back. Not after the big retirement announcement at the Giro," Kelly says. "It’s hard for him at his age but he’s one of those amazing athletes, and he just wants to go on and go for that record. That’s his choice, and his decision, and it would be amazing to see if he could get it."

“It’s just about all the hard work. If it works out we’ll all be saying how great he is to take the record but if I was him, at his age, and in his position… he was at a super level this year before his crash. When you get to that age, it can be hard to get to that level again. He’s by far the best sprinter of all time and it’s incredible what he’s achieved in a modern Grand Tour."

Following the announcement of the route of the 2024 Tour de France, Cavendish admitted it would be a tough challenge. "It's so hard. I am actually in a bit of shock," was the Astana Qazaqstan Team rider's initial reaction to the profile of the race. “From a sprinter’s point of view it’s not nice. It’s horrible,” Kelly explains, giving his opinion of the route. 

“As we’ve been hearing from a number of sprinters, it’s so difficult, but that’s nothing new. These races now seem to have something against these sprinters and in the latter years the pure sprinters don’t really have much of an opportunity to demonstrate their abilities. One event wants to be better than the other, and that just makes it harder and harder," he continues. "In the future, the pure sprinters coming through will have to adjust the way that they train because if they can’t get over hills they’ll win nothing. If you go back a few years in the Tour you’d have the first week with stages guaranteed for the sprinters, with three or four for the sprinters but that’s all changed. The organisers now want to create hype but where’s it going?"