With long climbs at high altitude, Colombia is hardly the first place that would come to mind when thinking about a training camp for a sprinter such as Mark Cavendish. However, the Manxman and several of his Astana Qazaqstan teammates spent three weeks in the South American country ahead of their season debut at the Tour Colombia last week.
The team’s hard work clearly paid off, as Cavendish took his first win of the season on stage 4, whilst Harold Tejada took the victory on stage 2 and finished sixth overall at his home race.
This early season preparation is being done with an eye on the team’s overarching objective for this season, which is to break the all-time stage win record at the Tour de France with Cavendish in the summer.
The team’s head of performance Vasilis Anastopoulos reflected positively on the team’s time in Colombia, as he said in an interview with the team after the race that “we can only be happy with the outcome of the training camp and the race. We have spent four weeks in Colombia, first in Medellin and then in Paipa. I am really happy with the attitude of all riders who participated in this camp”.
Cavendish will now head to the UAE Tour ahead of his first European race of the season at Tirreno-Adriatico in March, before a short Classics season at races such as Milano-Torino, Classic Brugge-De Panne and Scheldeprijs.
On the upcoming block of racing, Anastopoulos stated that “I think that after these four weeks in Colombia all the guys are ready to start their season in Europe. I believe we did the right decision to bring our team here for the training camp and after a huge amount of work which has been done here we are looking forward to perform well in the following races”.
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