'If Mark Cavendish didn't believe he could make history, he'd have stopped' – sprinter's coach confident of Tour de France success

Vasilis Anastopoulos recruited by Astana Qazaqstan to chase 35th victory

10:46, Thursday 7th December 2023

Matilda Price

Racing News Editor

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Mark Cavendish last won a Grand Tour stage in the 2023 Giro d'Italia

Mark Cavendish’s coach is confident that the British sprinter can find Tour de France stage-winning success in 2024 as he aims to surpass the all-time record he currently shares with Eddy Merckx.

Vasilis Anastopoulos, who previously worked with Cavendish at Deceuninck-Quick Step in 2021 and 2022, has been recruited by Astana Qazaqstan as head of performance after Cavendish announced he would continue racing for one more year.

In an interview with Portuguese Cycling Magazine, Anastopoulos has expressed both his and Cavendish’s confidence in the sprinter’s chances of achieving a 35th Tour stage win next summer, answering with a simple “yes” when asked if he thought the feat would happen.

“He is a great champion, a great fighter. If he didn't believe he could make history, he would have stopped racing,” Anastopoulos said.

“That's why the team hired cyclists to make the best launch train in the world, with [Michael] Mørkøv, [Davide] Ballerini, and [Cees] Bol – good and experienced cyclists who can take him to the last metres of the sprint stages, where it will be up to him to finish off the work.”

With the possibility of making history on the table, and Cavendish postponing retirement in pursuit of one final goal, the Astana squad and staff for 2024 have been almost exclusively built around the Brit, with a host of lead-out riders drafted in, as well as his former teammate Mark Renshaw as a sports director.

Anastopoulos’ appointment was no different, and something Cavendish himself had a big role in.

“He played an important role, especially at the beginning of the season when he introduced me to Alexander Vinokourov,” Anastopoulos explained to Portuguese Cycling Magazine. “When we agreed that I would join the team on a three-year contract, Mark announced that he would continue next year. It was a very good surprise for us.”

In their previous partnership at Deceuninck-Quick Step, Cavendish and Anastopoulos – despite being a late pairing due to Cavendish’s late arrival to the squad – achieved 15 wins over two years, including his renaissance at the Tour in 2021, so it’s perhaps not surprising the Manxman wants to return to a winning formula for 2024.

Getting Cavendish back to Tour stage-winning form

As his coach, Anastopoulos doesn’t just have to believe in Cavendish; he has to actively help him get back to a place where he can win Tour de France sprints. However, according to Anastopulous, that level isn’t far off, with Cavendish coming close with a second place on stage 7 of this year’s race.

“Mark's level last year was very good and we will try to improve a little more so that it is enough,” he said. “In the Tour de France stage where he had a mechanical, but he still finished second – I am convinced that he could have won that stage without mechanical problems.”

In terms of preparation, much of Cavendish’s training for the Tour will focus on getting through the harder stages, of which there are many, so that he can contest the relatively few sprints.

“We don’t do anything out of the ordinary [in training]. We focus on building endurance and then we work a lot on sprints, because what he needs to win a race is to arrive at the finish line as strong as possible. This is what we will try to do from December onwards,” Anastopoulos said.

“The Tour de France stages are really difficult, so he has to be able to survive the long climbs and the long days, and have energy at the end of the stages. We will focus on improving his aerobic capacity and then his sprint capacity as much as possible during the season.”

However, despite the possible pressure of trying to coach the sport’s most prolific sprinter to a history-making victory, Anastopoulos’ confidence is balanced with an acceptance of the fact that he can only do so much.

“I don’t feel any stress. I just want to make sure everything goes well this year and that Mark and the other cyclists have the best preparation in training and in the races they need to do,” he said. “If the result comes we welcome it, but if it doesn't we have to accept it; we are talking about human beings, not robots.”