Tom Pidcock and Mark Cavendish chasing Tour de France stage wins

The Yorkshireman told a pre-race press conference in Florence it would be too difficult to maintain a general classification push himself given his other aim of defending his Olympic mountain bike title, with the race in Paris just eight days after the Tour finishes in Nice.

“I want to go and race aggressively and try and win some stages,” said Pidcock. “Initially I don’t want to lose time in the GC for the sake of it but if I need to do that to achieve the goal of winning stages then I will later in the race.”

Ineos’ overall ambitions will be built around 2019 Tour winner Egan Bernal, still trying to find his ceiling after the career-threatening crash suffered in 2022, and Carlos Rodriguez, who was fifth overall in last year’s Tour.

Geraint Thomas, who finished third in the Giro d’Italia in May, is also in the squad, although the Welshman has admitted he does not yet know what sort of shape he will be in after his exertions in Italy, suggesting he too might be on the look out for stage wins while helping his team-mates.

Pidcock’s role in the team has been a talking point since the release of the second series of the Netflix documentary Unchained, which suggested he was not keen on the idea of supporting Rodriguez at times during the Tour last year.

Pidcock joked he had been portrayed as “the bad guy” but insisted he has not seen the series. Rodriguez said he had no doubts about the relationship he has with Pidcock.

“It’s a series and for sure they want to make it entertaining,” the 23-year-old said. “Maybe they put things out of context to (gain) more audience, but the relationship between me and Tom is good.

“The stage where they said (he didn’t wait for me), it makes no sense because it was with 500 metres to go and it wasn’t going to help me (anyway).”

A Grand Depart in Italy and an unusually difficult first weekend – the opening stage from Florence to Rimini includes more than 3,700 metres of climbing – could present Pidcock with an opportunity to don the yellow jersey, at least for a few days.

“For sure it’s possible,” he said. “It’s kind of what I’ve been dreaming of for the last months when training hard. There’s a lot of guys also having the same dreams. It’s not going to be easy but we’re going to give it a good shot.”

Thomas, winner of the 2018 Tour, will be on the start line for the 13th time. The 38-year-old admitted it could be his last, but he is not interested in getting sentimental until it is all over.

“I don’t really think about it, to be honest,” he said. “It could be (the last) for sure but I’ll just be focused on the race and what I’ve got to do. I’ll look back once it’s all done. I’m just super excited to be here.

“To be here with these guys, looking to be aggressive, to try and win some stages and perform in the GC, it’s exciting for me. It’s what I dreamed of as a kid.”

A year after a crash ended what was due to be his final Tour on stage eight, Mark Cavendish is back for one more shot at a record-breaking 35th stage win.

He came within just a few metres of that victory on stage seven into Bordeaux last year, hampered by a skipping chain, but a day later Cavendish left the race in an ambulance after breaking his collarbone in a crash.

It was not the way for one of cycling’s all-time greats to end his long association with the race that has defined so much of his career. Whether or not he would manage to win a stage, last year’s Tour was supposed to be a lap of honour – a farewell to his favourite race.

Ultimately, it was little surprise that Cavendish was subsequently persuaded by his family and his Astana-Qazaqstan team to ride on for one more year.

So here we go again. Cavendish, newly knighted in the King’s Birthday Honours, back on the start line.

Astana have gone all-in on Project Cavendish this time.

But it won’t be easy. According to the race profile there are eight flat stages but in reality, only five are likely to produce bunch sprints and between them is a parcours which Cavendish – speaking at least year’s route presentation – said left him “in shock” because of how difficult it is.

The word from inside the camp is that Cavendish’s power numbers are close to those he was producing ahead of the 2021 Tour.

The final days before the Tour have seen Cavendish at a training camp in Athens, having spent the middle week in June racing at the Tour de Suisse. Many of his rivals – Jasper Philipsen, Fabio Jakobsen, Tim Merlier and Olav Kooij – opted to race at the Baloise Tour.

Cavendish went for the more punishing Swiss race to hone his survival skills in the mountains, keenly aware of the unusually steep road ahead.