Mark Cavendish will get his 2014 cycling road racing season underway at the Tour de San Luis in Argentina today (Monday).
The Manxman got his Omega-Pharma Quick-Step career off to a winning start in the same event 12 months ago when he claimed victory in stage one, before finishing second in stage two.
This year’s edition begins with a 164-kilometre stage from San Luis to Villa Mercedes on a mostly flat route which will likely end in a bunch sprint.
Stage three from Tilisarao to Ave Fénix Juana Koslay and the final stage from San Luis to Hito del Bicentenario en Terrazas del Portezuelo are also flat affairs so there should be plenty of scope for the Manx Missile to get some early-season wins under his belt.
Cav will be joined in the team in South America by Tom Boonen, Alessandro Petacchi, Gianluca Brambilla, Stijn Vandenbergh and Guillaume van Keirsbulck.
Cav’s hopes of more success in cycling’s three Grand Tours - the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana - have been boosted with the arrival of Mark Renshaw, a former team-mate from HTC-Highroad.
The two Marks proved to be formidable and dominant in bunch sprints, with Australian Renshaw developing into the perfect lead-out man for Cav, none more so than in the final stage of the 2009 Le Tour when they completed a HTC one-two on the Champs-Élysées.
After San Luis, the Manxman is expected to compete in the Dubai Tour and the Tour of Qatar in early February, while the first of the season’s Grand Tours - the Giro - begins in Belfast on May 9 and ends three weeks later on June 1 in Trieste, north-eastern Italy.