Mark Cavendish, cycling’s top sprinter, is leaving Team Sky after just one season to join Belgian lineup Omega Pharma-Quick-Step on a three-year deal.
The British rider moved to Team Sky from HTC-Highroad at the end of last year’s season, and won three stages in this year’s Tour de France.
However, the British team’s priorities were firmly set toward general classification successes for the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome, leaving Cavendish’s future in the balance, despite having two more years left on his contract.
Photo: EPA
“Mark is one of the most outstanding riders in cycling, a true star recognized internationally for his unique style and irrefutable athletic skills,” Omega Pharma team owner Zdenek Bakala said. “His extraordinary sprints have become a cycling ‘must-see’ that can fire up crowds the world over.”
The 27-year-old Cavendish, who has won a total of 23 stages in the Tour de France, played a vital support role in this year’s race as Wiggins secured overall victory for the first time.
Cavendish, who took the rainbow jersey as the world road race champion last year, privately expressed a desire to move on in July, before going public last month — believing Team Sky’s stated ambitions and his own no longer matched.
Photo: EPA
“Mark has been a true champion for Team Sky this year,” team principal Dave Brailsford said. “It’s been an honor having the rainbow jersey in this team and great to work so closely with a rider I’ve known since he was a junior ... He has been a real team player, making history in a Tour de France winning team.”
Cavendish will take the place at Omega Pharma vacated by US rider Levi Leipheimer, who was sacked last week for his role in the doping scandal involving Lance Armstrong.
“It’s been an incredibly fun year riding with friends I’ve grown up with, but I’m super excited about riding with old friends and teammates in one of the most successful and established teams in cycling,” Cavendish said.
“I believe in the team’s project and I’m thrilled to be a part of it,” he added.
Cavendish’s last race for Team Sky came at the Tour of Britain last month, when he won the final stage to go out on a high.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier