For Michael Mørkøv, the call to form part of Mark Cavendish’s repeat bid for a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win in 2024 could hardly have been more memorable. It can’t be that often, after all, that a sprinter of Cavendish’s calibre tells a lead-out man that his career shelf-life hangs on his decision.
“When Mark rang me, he told me that if I joined Astana, he would extend his contract,” Mørkøv says at the Astana Qazaqstan training camp, breaking into a smile as he recounts Cavendish’s persistence.
“He put a bit of pressure on me. I wouldn’t want to be the one stopping him from continuing. But I’m also quite sure he would have continued without me. It was just his way of playing his cards.
“But I did have the feeling that he wanted me to join this team, because we had a very good history in the past, let’s say. And for me, it was a great opportunity because he was one of the sprinters I had the greatest success with, and that comes about from the trust he has in me. He trusts me 100%, which allows me to be the best version of myself.”
The call from Cavendish came, Mørkøv reveals, just a day after the Manxman broke his collarbone and abandoned this year’s Tour, still one stage short of breaking the record he has shared with Eddy Merckx since 2021.
“I saw his name on the phone call and before I picked it up, I knew why he was calling. I told him that I knew why and he was like, ‘Yeah, you know…’ He was sitting in hospital, making a list of what he needed for next year,” Mørkøv says.
“He was super motivated and that also motivated me. So I’m not doing this because it’s him, but because we worked so well together in the past. As a lead-out man, that’s so important.”
And so Mørkøv was in from the get-go in what is certain to be one of the most talked-about projects of the new year in professional cycling. Needless to say, Cavendish’s aim in 2024 is to bounce back to win that weighty 35th Tour stage win, in part courtesy of a major overhaul of Astana Qazaqstan.
The Kazakhstani squad are one of the longest-surviving modern-day pro teams, but until Cavendish arrived, they had never had any major sprinters on their books. And in 2024, they will be taking that new focus to what Cavendish hopes will be a whole new level.
A year ago, Cavendish was a late, late signing for Astana after the collapse of the B&B Hotels project, and manager Alexandre…
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