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It seems that Mark Cavendish‘s lead-out man for 2023 can be Max Richeze after the rider from Argentina dropped some severe hints that he can be racing subsequent yr with the Briton.
In an interview with specialist Italian web site bici.Professional (opens in new tab), Richeze, who appeared to have hung up his wheels after a last six-month spell with UAE Group Emirates, didn’t title Cavendish.
Nonetheless, he did say he could be racing subsequent season with a rider who didn’t go to the Tour de France this yr and who was upset consequently.
The identical unnamed rider and he had by no means coincided in the identical staff however the rider had at all times been a witness to how Richeze, a professional since 2006, had raced.
“We each have one thing to show,” stated Richeze, who additionally claimed that the staff supervisor of the squad had stated negotiations to signal the ‘thriller rider’ “had been like these for a soccer participant”.
Placing collectively the clues to this specific whodunnit, even discarding the soccer reference, it’s not difficult to achieve the conclusion that Richeze can be racing for Mark Cavendish in a brand new staff for each riders subsequent yr. Though, in fact, he may very well be referring to another person.
Additional compounding the ‘thriller’, in fact, is that Richeze, 39, was additionally linked to Cavendish in a report printed in Ouest France yesterday, which stated that each had now reached an settlement to race with French ProTeam B&B Lodges p/b KTM for 2023.
The staff, nevertheless, subsequently instructed Cyclingnews that they denied all info within the report and had no additional remark.
Wherever he could also be racing in 2023, there isn’t any doubt that Richeze is a well-established lead-out man, with two Giro d’Italia wins in 2007 to his title and expertise working with high names like Fabio Jakobsen, Elia Viviani and Marcel Kittel. However his presence in skilled biking nearly got here to an abrupt finish final winter.
Richeze instructed bici.Professional that he had come near ending his profession on the finish of 2021, previous to an surprising extension with UAE Group Emirates on a six-month contract for Fernando Gaviria in 2022.
Nonetheless, his last Giro d’Italia this spring led to an alleged falling-out together with his staff over extending the contract and, after his final race within the Elfstedenronde Brugge race in June, he returned to Argentina.
“In July I took a little bit of a trip, till the decision from this rider pal got here,” he instructed the Italian web site.
“I used to be comfortable. To have the prospect to finish issues my approach and since, after I weighed the whole lot up, I do know I can nonetheless go robust. And so I made the choice to proceed.”
As for why he was known as up by the ‘rider pal’, Richeze instructed bici.Professional: “We had been speaking for a very long time. We at all times had been in numerous groups, however he noticed my work. And eventually, now we’ll race collectively.”
Richeze additionally claimed that the identical rider “selected the riders, the workers and the coaches” on the staff. “He actually desires to return to France. He wasn’t comfortable at not going this yr. We each have one thing to show.”
B&B Lodges p/b KTM are anticipated to carry a press convention in Paris on October twenty sixth, the place the more and more drawn-out cleaning soap opera over whether or not or not stated ‘thriller’ rider has really signed for the French squad will, hopefully, conclude.
