MARK Cavendish is one of the top riders who will feature in next month’s Tour of Britain.
Britain’s record Tour de France stage winner, Cavendish, will line up alongside fellow top sprinter André Greipel and former UCI World Hour Record holder Rohan Dennis.
Cavendish, who has 30 stage victories in the Tour de France, won his first Olympic medal on Tuesday evening, taking Silver in the Omnium track event, and will be targeting the World Road Race Championships in Qatar in October.
The Tour of Britain will be his first race post-Olympics.
The Manxman, who also has ten stage wins to his name in Britain’s biggest professional cycle race, has been confirmed as a part of the Team Dimension Data provisional roster alongside Steve Cummings, who won Stage Seven of the Tour de France this summer, and is twice a runner-up in the Tour of Britain (2008 and 2011).
In the sprints Cavendish will face four-time Tour of Britain stage winner Greipel, who won a hat trick of stages in 2010, and took victory during the 2015 Tour in Ipswich. The German, who rides for Lotto Soudal, won his 11th Tour de France stage this Summer with the win on the final stage into Paris.
Making his debut in the Tour of Britain will be former UCI World Hour Record holder Rohan Dennis, who won the opening stage time trial of the 2015 Tour de France. He will head the BMC Racing Team line-up alongside Taylor Phinney, a World Champion on both the road and track, who raced in the Tour of Britain last September.
Dennis and Phinney’s presence in the Tour of Britain means both the Australian and USA National Time Trial champions’ jerseys will be on display in Bristol for the Stage 7a Time Trial on September 10.
They will be joined in the provisional BMC Racing Team line-up by Rick Zabel, the son of legendary Tour de France Green Jersey winner Erik, who is returning for his third consecutive Tour of Britain.
Mick Bennett, Tour of Britain Race Director said: “In Cavendish and Greipel we have two of the world’s top sprinters, who are both already multiple Tour of Britain stage winners, while we are delighted that BMC Racing Team will be bringing two outstanding tim- trialists in Dennis and Phinney to the race.”
