World champion Mark Cavendish (Sky) won the Tour's final stage in Paris for the fourth straight year.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Mark Cavendish finds his seat(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Wiggins, Evans, Cavendish at the Tour presentation(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Mark Cavendish (Sky) puncuates a magical Tour de France for the British team with victory on the Champs-Élysées.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Mark Cavendish, who will be riding under the banner of Omega Pharma-QuickStep in 2013, is hopeful that the 2013 Tour de France will give him the opportunity to finally pull on the yellow jersey.
With the Tour's Grand Départ taking place on the island of Corsica, the 200km opening stage between Porto-Vecchio and Bastia will be the first occasion since 1966 that a sprinter can wear the yellow jersey. Cavendish has already got his eye on the prize.
"The first stage should be a sprint and I've never had the opportunity to wear the yellow jersey, so it'll be nice to try for that, and then at the end of the Tour there's a spectacular finish in Paris which has a few changes on the final circuit," he told TeamSky.com.
Cavendish backed up his green-jersey-winning performance in 2011 with fourth this season riding for Sky, winning three stages along the way. He was also named by L'Equipe as the best sprinter to have contested the Tour de France. Remarkably, he is also unbeaten on the Champs Elysees since 2009.
"We'll go all the way around the Arc du Triomphe on the laps, which is a nice way to finish the Tour next year," he said. "I'm definitely looking forward to it."
Meantime, Cavendish said he respected the actions of Great Britain teammate David Millar and former directeur sportif Rolf Aldag for having confessed to doping.
"These guys care about the sport," he told the BBC. "They ruin their reputation to move the sport on, but other people care more about themselves."
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As a passionate campaigner for clean sport, Cavendish said that he felt it "unfair" that riders like himself now had to be asked questions about Lance Armstrong in the wake of the doping scandal that has rocked cycling.
"If you've done something, confess," Cavendish said. "That anyone can damage the sport I love right now, it's frustrating."
Cavendish called Armstrong "stubborn" and also explained that the American has "too much to lose". The 27-year-old continued by saying that there was a lot of anger following the revelations.
"It's a shame cycling has being dragged through this again. It had to come out.
"Us riders here now - and I think I speak for all of us - we're the ones picking the pieces up and having to convince people the sport has changed.
"It's difficult to convince people because of the precedent that's been set and I haven't got the answer, other than to do what I'm doing."
