MARK CAVENDISH SET TO RIDE AT GIRO D’ITALIA AFTER NINE-YEAR HIATUS; ‘OUR MAN FOR THE FLAT’.

It’s official: Mark Cavendish will ride at the Giro d’Italia. The 105th instalment of the Giro gets underway in the Hungarian city of Budapest on May 6, with the culmination being an individual time trial in Verona on May 29. Watch the Giro d’Italia and other top cycling live on Eurosport and discovery+. You can hear exclusively from Cavendish on Eurosport’s new podcast The Breakdown on Tuesday.

Mark Cavendish will ride at the Giro d’Italia this year after a nine-year hiatus.

Cavendish is one of the most successful riders in the history of the Corsa Rosa. He has won 15 stages in five appearances, taken home the points classification once and spent a total of four days in the iconic maglia rosa.

Michael Morkov has been drafted in to replace the injured Ilan van Wilder. Mauro Schmid, Pieter Serry, Bert Van Lerberghe and Mauri Vansevenan also form the roster.

Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl has amassed 26 stage victories with 14 different riders.

The team’s sports director Davide Bramati said: “We go to the Giro d’Italia with a lot of motivation. We have a good team at the start, with Mark as our man for the flat.

“He has won a lot of stages at the Giro, and he can rely on many strong riders to support and guide him in the hectic bunch sprints.

“For the other stages, we’ll just take it one day at a time, fight for every opportunity and see what we can do.

“We know that it won’t be an easy three weeks, it never is, but we will try to do our best, because it’s in our nature.”

The Giro d’Italia gets underway on May 6 and finishes on May 29.

You can hear exclusively from Cavendish tomorrow morning on The Breakdown. The Breakdown is a new podcast from Eurosport and you can get new episodes on Tuesdays.

Each episode will be available on all your usual podcast platforms, with full vodcasts on eurosport.com and on YouTube.