Cavendish Gearing Up for a Second Tilt at the Tour

The owner of the High Road cycling team, Bob Stapleton, says British sprinter Mark Cavendish, will ride this year's Tour de France: "if he stays healthy and nothing [untoward] happens" between now and the start on July 5.

"He's a remarkable athlete, he's had a huge year already, and he has huge ambitions with the Tour and the Olympic Games, and we need to manage that," added Stapleton, who today announced that High Road's main sponsor from the Tour onwards will be the Colombia clothing company, of a man who is currently regarded as the fastest finisher on the professional circuit.

Cavendish, who is only 22, won two stages of the Giro d'Italia on his debut this year, as well as taking the world Madison relay championship on the track in March. He is likely to ride the event in Beijing and may well ride only the first 10 days of the Tour to conserve his form for the Olympics.

Last year, as well as taking 10 major wins in his first professional season, he had mixed fortunes on his debut at the Tour, with the euphoria of the start in London followed by a brace of heavy crashes en route to the stage finishes at Canterbury and Ghent.

In spite of being cut and bruised, he still managed two top-10 finishes before pulling out when the race entered the Alps. This year, he has moved up a grade with the Giro victories, while the Tour will be without two of its strongest sprinters, Tom Boonen and Alessandro Petacchi, increasing the chances of his becoming Britain's first sprint stage winner in the Tour since 1975.

From this July until at least the end of 2009, he will be riding in new colors: the Colombia jersey, to be launched at the Tour de France, will be blue, black, yellow and white. Thus far this year High Road, had been riding without a principal sponsor after the withdrawal at short notice of T-Mobile last December.

Stapleton said that in his view the arrival of Colombia in cycling, together with a new sponsor for the CSC team, Saxo Bank, meant that major companies were still prepared to invest in the sport in spite of its doping problems. "It's an encouraging sign. There is a lot of work to be done, but objective measures say that the sport is taking action and that action should lead to a reduction in doping."