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Mark Renshaw moves to Omega Pharma-QuickStep

Roar Guru
3rd August, 2013
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The trade season has officially opened and the worst kept secret was Mark Renshaw (currently Belkin) moving to join his former HTC-Highroad teammate Mark Cavendish (OPQS).

The news of Renshaw’s move was rumoured some weeks ago and came as little surprise to many given the exceptional history the two have with one another during the absolute dominance HTC had in terms of stage victories.

Renshaw tweeted this morning: ‘@markcavendish See you in 2014.’

Cav responded: ‘Sh**. Another 2 years of your moaning.’

Renshaw returned the banter with: ‘Moaning? I guess that means dragging you round the bunch.’

Renshaw left HTC-Highroad when it disbanded and headed to (at the time) Rabobank to be their lead sprint man.

Unfortunately for Renshaw, the plan did not come to complete fruition and has more recently been hampered by a major crash which has de-railed a key part of his season.

Renshaw was long considered the best lead out man in the world (this honour currently resides with Greg Henderson of Lotto) and his ability to move Cav through the bunch and drop him off with roughly 200m to go was unquestioned.

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Renshaw has a huge sustained power output, and it is hard to argue against his move to OPQS and the benefits it will provide Cav with.

Cav didn’t have his best Tour de France in terms of stage wins and part of this can be attributed to him racing more than any other sprinter – noting he suffered for days on end in a brutal Giro. His lead out train has also not been as strong as he would probably like.

The rise of Kittel who has the largest power output of any of the sprinters was well apparent, and he now joins the likes of Cav, Sagan and Greipel, so Cav will need all the help he can get. Renshaw certainly provides that.

Watching Henderson and Renshaw go head to head in a lead out will be great to watch. Hopefully we will see both riders having a tussle at St. Kilda’s Sprint Champs in late Dec 2013 down in Port Melbourne and potentially Bay Crits in early Jan in Geelong.

Expect a few more notable moves like Henao from Sky.

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