{"id":3049,"date":"2021-07-06T13:50:40","date_gmt":"2021-07-06T13:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/ie\/?p=3049"},"modified":"2021-07-06T13:50:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T13:50:40","slug":"skoda-green-jersey-overview-cavendish-is-back-but-will-he-win-the-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/ie\/2021\/07\/06\/skoda-green-jersey-overview-cavendish-is-back-but-will-he-win-the-green\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0160koda Green Jersey Overview: Cavendish Is Back \u2013 but Will He Win the Green?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>The big story about the race for the \u0160koda Green Jersey is that Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe will be trying to win his record eighth points classification title after he went through a calamitous 2020, came down with Covid-19 earlier this year, and was virtually written off by his team\u2019s sporting director.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old Slovak has rebounded by winning the <em>maglia ciclamino<\/em> in the Giro d\u2019Italia, the equivalent of the Tour\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2020\/09\/08\/the-story-of-the-skoda-green-jersey-and-the-legend-of-peter-sagan\/\">\u0160koda Green Jersey,<\/a> and looks to be near his best form again. But this year\u2019s race for the Tour de France green jersey is also marked by the riders who are not in the race. Last year\u2019s winner, Sam Bennett of Deceuninck\u2013Quick-Step, dropped out of the Tour at the last minute because of a knee injury he suffered in training. He was replaced by the veteran sprinter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/06\/24\/mark-cavendish-will-not-go-for-eddy-merckxs-record-at-the-tour\/\">Mark Cavendish<\/a> who signalled his fitness and combativity by winning Wednesday\u2019s Stage 4 sprint, his first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.letour.fr\/en\/\">Tour de France<\/a> stage win in five years and the 31<sup>st<\/sup> of his career.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-controller-wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Backed by an excellent Deceuninck \u2013 Quick-Step team, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MarkCavendish?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@MarkCavendish<\/a> delivered again a vintage sprint and wrote another page of history at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TDF2021?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#TDF2021<\/a> &#8211; where he captured his 32nd stage win.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/w6hwsvfdHk\">https:\/\/t.co\/w6hwsvfdHk<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/soudalquickstep\/status\/1410882160324755456?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 2, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async data-src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>Australian sprinter <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/06\/07\/caleb-ewan-fights-off-criticism-and-aims-high\/\">Caleb Ewan<\/a> who publicly targeted the <i lang=\"fr\">maillot vert<\/i> as well as winning a stage in each of the three Grand Tours is also gone, having crashed out of the race within sight of the finish line of Stage 3. He made what most observers say was a reckless move and slipped on the wet pavement, breaking his collarbone.<\/p>\n<p>In falling, he also took down Sagan but the Slovak was fortunate and came away with little more than a scare. Based on his record, he must now be considered the overwhelming favourite again \u2013 unless the 36-year-old Cavendish is back to the form that helped him win the \u0160koda Green Jersey ten years ago, one year before Sagan won his first. The ease with which he won the sprint on Tuesday and his efforts in the intermediate sprint on that stage suggests he and his team are targeting the green jersey.<\/p>\n<p>This year\u2019s Tour would seem to suit him, with more sprint finishes and fewer mountains than usual. But is he fit enough, at 36, to make it over all the mountains and reach Paris? Time will tell. In any case, he appears to be, at this early stage of the race, the fastest man in the peloton and he has the \u0160koda Green Jersey on his back after also winning Stage 6 with a powerful drive to the line, easily outsprinting Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Fenix and Arkea-Samsic\u2019s Nacer Bouhanni. Sagan finished well back in 5<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3058\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3058\" style=\"width: 1000px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/14\/2021\/07\/Cavendish-Stage-6-profimedia-0619047616.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3058 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/14\/2021\/07\/Cavendish-Stage-6-profimedia-0619047616.jpg\" alt=\"Stage 6 at the Tour de France\" width=\"1000\" height=\"586\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/14\/2021\/07\/Cavendish-Stage-6-profimedia-0619047616.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/14\/2021\/07\/Cavendish-Stage-6-profimedia-0619047616-300x176.jpg 300w, https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/14\/2021\/07\/Cavendish-Stage-6-profimedia-0619047616-768x450.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3058\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sprinting for the win at stage 6. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Cavendish is now two wins short of a mythical record, the 34 Tour stage wins of the great <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/06\/30\/the-fall-of-eddy-merckx-the-greatest-tour-de-france-champion\/\">Eddy Merckx.<\/a> The native of the Isle of Man has refused to talk to media about that record or to mention Merckx\u2019s name. After Thursday\u2019s stage win, he told reporters, \u201cIf I\u2019m good enough to win 50 more Tour stages, I will. If I\u2019m not good enough to win another stage, then I won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The question Sagan and other points classification contenders will be asking themselves is, \u201cIs he good enough to win the green jersey?\u201d From the evidence we have so far, he just might be. Cavendish currently leads the points classification table with 148 points. Philipsen is second, at 102 with Bouhanni just 3 points behind him. Sagan is in 7<sup>th<\/sup> place, at 72 points. He and his team don\u2019t appear to have begun their campaign for the green jersey yet for he was on his own in the final kilometre of Stage 5, with no lead-out riders visible.<\/p>\n<p>But these are still very early days in the Tour and Sagan and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/03\/31\/peter-sagan-could-soon-change-teams-according-to-bora-hansgrohe-manager\/\">Bora-Hansgrohe<\/a> must have a plan more serious than simply waiting for Cavendish to abandon the race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The big story about the race for the \u0160koda Green Jersey is that Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe will be trying [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":3065,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-3049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-cycling"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u0160koda Green Jersey Overview: Cavendish Is Back \u2013 but Will He Win the Green? 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