IN a little over a month Mark Renshaw will find out if he will be riding for Omega Pharma-QuickStep in this year’s Tour de France, but the Bathurst cyclist has certainly presented a good case to his team officials.
As the Tour of California came to its conclusion on Sunday, Renshaw played an important role in helping team-mate Mark Cavendish to take out the honours on the 135.2 kilometre Thousand Oaks stage.
That is exactly what QuickStep signed him up to do.
However, it was not a lead out job that Renshaw provided for the noted sprinter as he had done in when Cavendish took out the opening stage of the tour. Instead he worked to get his team-mate back in contact with the leading bunch after he was dropped on the day’s decisive climb.
It was something Cavendish made sure to mention after taking out the eighth stage over Giant-Shimano’s John Degenkolb and Cannondale’s Peter Sagan.
“I got dropped a bit, but I had Mark Renshaw and a few strong guys from other teams with me,” Cavendish said.
“The guys who were with me wanted to get back on. So, we went full gas on the descent and we almost got back. Then my team-mates Niki Terpstra and Carlos Verona, who were in the breakaway, came back. They chased for the team and we got back on.”
Back in 2011 when they were team-mates at HTC Highroad, Renshaw played a major role in Cavendish winning seven Grand Tour stages.
The next two years the men were rivals in the peloton, but for 2014 Renshaw was reunited with Cavendish who wanted the Bathurst talent to increase his chances of winning more stages.
Renshaw has certainly delivered thus far and in the process earned himself three podium finishes as well – a second in the Tour of Dubai, a team time trial victory at the Tirreno-Adriatico and third in the Tour of Turkey.
That sort of effort shows he is in good touch and given Renshaw missed last year’s Tour de France after breaking his collarbone in the Tour of Turkey, he would love take part in the 101st edition.
QuickStep officials will not name their team for this year’s Tour de France, which gets underway on July 7, until a week before the Grand Tour event starts.
In the meantime Renshaw will keep stating his case.
Renshaw had battled some hot temperatures during this year’s Tour of California, day six especially tough as the mercury hit 47 degrees, but he survived to line up for the final stage.
Mercifully for the riders, they faced much cooler temperatures, but with the stage including three climbs it was not going to be an easy one for sprinters such as Renshaw.
Not surprisingly a breakaway formed and when Cavendish punctured at the bottom of the second climb, a sprint finish did not look part of the equation for QuickStep.
But Cavendish hauled himself over that climb then was joined by Renshaw. That pair, along with BMC duo Taylor Phinney and Thor Hushovd, got themselves back in contact with the peloton with about 10km to ride.
Renshaw continued to work for Cavendish before handing over the lead out job to his team-mates inside the final 5km.
Cavendish took out the win after two hours, 53 minutes and 50 seconds with Renshaw crossing the line 2:28 later after showing QuickStep officials his willingness to do a job for the team.
“The guys rode really incredible today. They really had some guts and I’m proud to again finish the job of a great team effort,” Cavendish said.
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