Mark Cavendish is back in action in Belgium after solid second place in last race
The 'Manx Missile' showed signs of his old self in his last race
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Mark Cavendish returns to action this week at Nokere Koerse and Bredene Koksijde in Belgium after taking an impressive second place at his last race.
Cavendish (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) showed a glimpse of his old self when he took second place behind a flying Tim Merlier (Alpecin-Fenix) at GP Monseré and the British star will be hoping to continue that form into the two tricky Belgian races this week.
Nokere Koerse takes place on Wednesday (March 17), raced over 195km in Flanders, followed by Bredene Koksijde, also in Flanders, on Friday (March 19).
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Deceuninck - Quick-Step sports director, Rik Van Slycke said: "We have some solid line-ups for this week’s Belgian races, consisting of riders who can control the race and guys who can be in contention and fight for a good result.
"The roads will be narrow and we should have some strong winds, which means we need to be attentive at all times, because there’s a fair chance the peloton will split long before the finish.
"Throw in the hills and cobblestone stretches and you get all the ingredients of a proper classic, which means we can be in for some full gas racing, with little or no moment of respite."
Both races favour sprinters with Cees Bol (Team DSM), Fabio Jakobsen (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) and Pascal Akcermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) on the list of past winners at the events, but they do take in tricky terrain, much like any Belgian race.
Cavendish looks to be going into the race as co-leader with a very solid lead-out around the man from the Isle of Man. The rest of the squad is made up of Shane Archbold, Josef Cerny, Ian Garrison, Iljo Keisse, Stijn Steels and Jannik Steimle, with Florian Sénéchal in there as the other leader of the team.
Nokere Koerse is best known for its sprint finish up the Nokereberg cobbled climb in Nokere after taking in the climb multiple times over tricky circuits around the town - the race winner needs to be perfectly placed but also have an impressive amount of power to take victory.
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It won't be simple for Cavendish as he will be coming up against on-form sprinters such as Merlier as well as Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) and attacking riders like Nils Politt (Bora-Hansgrohe).
Cavendish is down to race yet another Belgian semi-classic after these two in the form of Scheldeprijs on April 7, a race he has won on three occasions.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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