Tour de France 2020: Mark Cavendish misses out on Tour again as Bahrain-McLaren go all in for Mikel Landa

Mark Cavendish will not race at the Tour de France for a second consecutive year after being left out of Bahrain-McLaren’s eight-man squad.

Cavendish, 35, is second all-time on the list of Tour stage winners with 30 victories, the last of which came in 2016.

Last year, Cavendish was controversially left out of Team Dimension Data’s squad after fighting his way back from the effects of the Epstein-Barr virus, leading to a breakdown in his relationship with the team.

He left to join his former coach Rod Ellingworth at Bahrain-McLaren in the winter with the hope of reigniting his career, but instead the truncated season has left him with few opportunities to race.

Now Cavendish has once again been left out of the Tour, with Bahrain-McLaren instead selecting a team designed to support the yellow jersey ambitions of Spaniard Mikel Landa.

The Tour, rescheduled due to the pandemic, begins next Saturday in Nice.

PA