However, Cavendish is still looking for his first win in 17 months, his best result of the 2019 season so far being a third place finish in a stage of the Tour of Turkey in April.
His most recent race was the Adriatica Ionica, which took place in Italy at the end of July, where the Manxman suffered a mechanical and finished nine minutes down on Álvaro Hodeg (Deceuninck - Quick-Step) who won the bunch sprint on stage one. He then abandoned the race on stage two.
Cavendish will be looking to compete in the first three flat stages at the Tour of Poland, with Fernando Gaviria (UAE Team Emirates) and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe) also set to contest the bunch sprints.
The former world champion will be supported by Bernie Eisel and Jaco Venter, with Enrico Gasparotto, Stefan De Bod, Gino Mader and Ben O’Connor completing Dimension Data’s seven-man squad.
Cavendish was left out of the South African team’s Tour de France squad this year, with the sprinter four wins off Eddy Merckx’s record 34 Tour stage victories and team management at odds over how the decision was made.
Performance manager Rolf Aldag said general manager Doug Ryder overruled him on the decision over Cavendish’s inclusion. “There’s no secret about it. I wanted to have him here and I think he would have suited our strategy but ultimately it was a team owner decision,” Aldag said at the time.
“It’s within my responsibility to select a team and I called eight names and Mark was included. The team owner has the right to overrule me, which he did.”
However, Cavendish has said he is ‘not thinking of Merckx’s record’ and just wants to win one more time, according to his former team boss Erik Zabel.
With the Tour omission and Cavendish’s former coach Rod Ellingworth set to take over Bahrain-Merida later this year, rumours of the sprinter moving to the team have resurfaced, with the Manxman out of contract at Dimension Data at the end of the year.
Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access
Hi. I'm Cycling Weekly's Weekend Editor. I like writing offbeat features and eating too much bread when working out on the road at bike races.
Before joining Cycling Weekly I worked at The Tab and I've also written for Vice, Time Out, and worked freelance for The Telegraph (I know, but I needed the money at the time so let me live).
I also worked for ITV Cycling between 2011-2018 on their Tour de France and Vuelta a España coverage. Sometimes I'd be helping the producers make the programme and other times I'd be getting the lunches. Just in case you were wondering - Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen had the same ham sandwich every day, it was great.
