"With Cavendish you have someone who is at the level when necessary" - Cees Bol is confident in Mark Cavendish's 35th Tour de France stage win

Mark Cavendish had been out with illness last weeks, but all the problems should be gone and the 38-year-old Manxman will return to action at Tour of Turkey. Cees Bol was Cav's man-for-everything at least year Tour de France, but that has now changed as the Kazakh team went all-out to build a sprint train that can deliver the Brit to record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage victory.

"It went really well in Colombia, with one stage win of the two sprint opportunities available," Bol begins his interview for In de Leiderstrui. "We worked well there and after that I actually only raced with Mark again in Tirreno, where we had bad luck with a flat tire and the other stages turned out to be a bit too hard for him. But there is no reason to panic. 2023 was a good example that with Cavendish you have someone who is at the level when necessary."

Bol's role in Cavendish's sprint train slightly changed with arrival of the likes of Michael Morkov. "Michael is now the last man standing. That was me last year, but I now actually do my work in the same distance from the finish. Last year we had fewer wagons in the train, so the priority was to keep Cav at the front, instead of really doing a lead-out. That remains the same for me now, with the difference that Michael is still behind me and he brings in the last speed and launches Mark for the sprint."

However absence of Cavendish and other riders continues to complicate Astana's dense situation in the UCI ranking. "If you look at other teams in a similar situation, they are much more concerned with adding all kinds of races to the program, based on points. Of course we also go for that and we want to grab as many as possible. But we do not subordinate other goals in our program to that points hunt. I certainly wouldn't call it panic, although there is awareness that it is important," says Bol.