Mark Cavendish uncertain over his racing return

Sixteen days after the crash that put him out of the Tour de France, Mark Cavendish is back on his bike but he is uncertain when he will be racing again. Cavendish made a rest-day appearance at the Tour and said he is determined to race before the end of the season but does not wish to compromise his recovery.

“It seems that the recovery is faster than we hoped,” said the sprinter, speaking at a mussels and beer party hosted by his Omega Pharma-Quickstep team against a backdrop of ruined Cathar castles. “I can start to train but the problem is that if I crash again, it was a grade four tear of the ligament, which was worse than we expected in the first days.”

The shoulder joint has been pinned to speed up recovery but the problem is the shoulder needs to strengthen sufficiently to take the impact should Cavendish crash again after his return to competition.

“Obviously I can’t be competing until I’m guaranteed that there will no more shoulder damage,” Cavendish said. “I’ve had an easy-ish season so far, so I want to finish the season strongly. I want to do it properly, I don’t want to be just riding around, and I don’t want to crash and damage my shoulder still further.” His goal is to race before the end of the season but no race has been earmarked for his return. “I don’t know how soon that will be. We’re going to talk about it. I’m pretty realistic that I can’t jump back into competition tomorrow, but I’d like to get back as soon as possible.”

Longest stage

Cavendish also let slip that in being deprived of the Tour for the first time in eight seasons, he has missed being at the race, but Tuesday’s first stage into the Pyrenees is not a day he would have enjoyed. This is the longest stage of the race at 237.5km, and it includes the super-steep Col de Portet-d’Aspet – where the Italian Olympic champion Fabio Casartelli died in a crash in 1995 – before what should be the decisive climb of the day, the Port de Balès, just 22 downhill kilometres from the finish in Luchon.

It should be another chance to put Vincenzo Nibali under pressure, but so far the Italian has looked immune, and Balès is more likely to witness another round in the contest for second place between Alejandro Valverde and the French riders Romain Bardet and Thibaut Pinot. Guardian service