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Mark Cavendish Offered One-Year Extension at Deceuninck-QuickStep

By Monica Buck

The headline sounds promising, but the negotiations are far from finished. The British sprinter, who won the Škoda Green Jersey at this year’‘s Tour de France and Patrick Lefevere, the team‘s GM, has not are yet to agreed on financial terms with Patrick Lefevere, the team’s GM.

Cavendish joined the Belgian WorldTour squad at the start of the season after three years without winning a single race. The Manxman has since made a stunning comeback. He won four stages at this year’‘s Tour de France, equalling the Eddy Merckx’‘s record of 34 stage victories and claimed claiming the points classification in the process.

Naturally, Cavendish now feels that he deserves a little bit more money. According to a report in Het Nieuwsblad on Tuesday, Lefevere offered the 36 -year -old a new deal during the Tour of Britain. However, the Belgian newspaper, in which Lefevere has a weekly column, also reports that the two parties are “”far apart”” concerning financial terms.

According to Nieuwsblad, the contract should still feature a low base salary with bonus payments, should Cavendish win certain races. Lefevere has been known to structure contracts this way in the past. Notably with Philippe Gilbert, who joined the team in 2017 and then won Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.

The Belgian newspaper also reports that Cavendish and Lefevere have not yet settled on the sprinter’s role in the next season. Sam Bennett, who was supposed to lead the team at the Tour, is leaving. However, Fabio Jakobsen is back in form and won the Škoda Green Jersey at La Vuelta this year.

Who will be the Belgian’s squad’s new lead sprinter? We don’t know, but we definitely want Cavendish to get his chance to fight for it.