While the arrival of Mark Renshaw at Omega Pharma-Quick Step next season will be music to the ears of both the Australian and his old friend Mark Cavendish, the sprint duo may find themselves singing from a different song sheet to another new recruit.
Let’s be honest – Renshaw’s reacquaintance with Cavendish couldn’t have come at a better time for them both. Well, it could – six weeks ago, for instance, would have been just brilliant – but I’m sure you get my point.
When HTC Colombia folded back in 2011 Cavendish’s move to Team Sky was inevitable.
Although the focus looked to be focused firmly on Bradley Wiggins and the quest for a British GC winner, you could hardly have blamed Cav for wanting to ride with what was essentially a British national team and be a part of history in the making.
Nor could you begrudge Renshaw for having the desire to try his arm at being a sprinter in his own right as opposed to a pilot for the world’s fastest man on two wheels.
While Sky took Bernard Eisel along with Cavendish there was no room for Renshaw, who made the switch to Rabobank in the quest for solo sprint victories.
I was never convinced that Renshaw had what it took to be number one at a team – and I remember attending a press conference ahead of the Tour Down Under in 2012, in which Renshaw was quizzed about his prospects, and being decidedly underwhelmed.
I just couldn’t see it happening. And I was right.
Just last week, my fellow Roar contributor Tim ‘Renowned’ Renowden wrote a perceptive piece entitled ‘We need to talk about Matt Goss’ in which he weighed up the options facing an under-performing, high-earning Australian sprinter with just one win to his name this season.
If it sounds familiar, then it is. In fact, the only reason why there hasn’t been a similar article asking the same very question about Renshaw on The Roar of late is that Renshaw – almost like the Australian national cricket team – has ceased to be of any relevance.
In his two seasons since leaving HTC-Colombia, Renshaw has notched just the two wins – that’s one less than his last two seasons at his former team. Hardly a ringing endorsement for his sprinting credentials.
To be fair, this season has been a bit of a write-off for the 30-year-old, who fractured a collarbone, broke a tooth and was left concussed by a heavy crash in the Tour of Turkey back in April.
A rare win at the Clasica de Almeria and two podium finishes at the Tour Down Under earlier in the season was clearly not enough for Renshaw to earn selection for Belkin’s GC-flavoured squad for the Tour de France in June.
Given the strength of the field – plus the stellar emergence of Germany’s Marcel Kittel – riding the Grande Boucle may only have been another blow to Renshaw’s confidence.
One rider, however, could have done with him by his side during the Tour: his old teammate Cavendish, whose own chances were hampered by lingering Giro fatigue and a poor OPQS lead-out train.
Indeed, there’s every bit reason to assume that had Renshaw – and not the hot-and-cold Gert Steegmans – been piloting Cavendish then the Manxman would not have recorded his most disappointing win tally since his first full Tour in 2008.
Reuniting Cavendish and Renshaw clearly makes perfect sense for everyone concerned. If Renshaw lacks the final kick to deliver himself to the line, he still has what it takes to launch Cavendish back into the limelight after his stuttering Tour.
Throw into the equation the addition of Italian veteran Alessandro Petacchi, and OPQS all of a sudden look to have the ingredients to rival the arguably superior sprint trains of Argos-Shimano and Lotto Belisol.
Which is why the arrival of Rigoberto Uran may muddy the waters a bit.
Make no mistake, Uran is a quality rider joining a team that has not had a GC man since washing its hands of Levi Leipheimer.
The American’s time at the Belgian team only lasted a matter of months – and approaching his fourth decade, Leipheimer was hardly the answer for the team’s podium ambitions.
But Uran is. In fact, Uran is arguably the first time Omega Pharma have had a bona fide Grand Tour GC rider in its 10-year history.
Armed with a rider who, until the recent heroics of Nairo Quintana, was the hottest of Colombia’s increasingly hot cycling talent, OPQS are hardly going to throw him in on his own.
For Uran to build on his second-place in the Giro and to emerge as a genuine contender in the Tour, he is going to need at least one more strong climbing lieutenant to ride alongside him and Michal Kwiatkowski. At least.
Throw German world time trial champion Tony Martin into the equation and all of a sudden you have a team which is fighting out on three fronts – sprints, time trials and the general classification. And that’s merely when looking through a three-week Grand Tour prism.
Traditionally the team is very much a classics one. Last year Tom Boonen won both Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
His classics season this term was somewhat overshadowed by injury – but having already seen his Grand Tour career curtailed, Boonen, still only 32, will be more eager than ever to prove himself in the spring.
Such is their strength and depth, OPQS will be able to put out very different squads for the classics and the Grand Tours – and they will do just that.
But already a rider of Sylvain Chavanel’s calibre is talking in the open about his necessity to look elsewhere because of competition for places. The Frenchman’s opportunities in the Tour were already dented by the strong focus on Cavendish.
If that focus is intensified with the addition of Renshaw and Petacchi, and then countered with Uran and the requisite additions he will need to make a serious campaign, then it’s easy to see why Chavanel is batting those bushy eyelids of his in the general direction of Ag2R-La Mondiale ahead of next season.
Omega Pharma-Quick Step’s recruitment ahead of the 2014 season is bold and exciting and – in all likelihood – unfinished.
Whether or not it will be a case of too many cooks remains to be seen. As we have seen with BMC and their quest to sign up every former world champion still in the peloton, success does not always come arm-in-arm with such a policy.
Cavendish left Sky precisely because of the team’s focus on the yellow jersey was greater than their desire to see him in green.
Renshaw’s arrival may look like it will put Cavendish back on track – but you could also see it as a sweetener to offset the bitterness brought about by the arrival of his old Skyteammate Uran.
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