Cavendish gets the nod for Classic Brugge-De Panne

MILAN ITALY MARCH 16 Mark Cavendish of United Kingdom C celebrates at finish line with Dries Devenyns of Belgium and Team QuickStep Alpha Vinyl R and teammates as race winner during the 103rd MilanoTorino 2022 a 197km one day race from Magenta to Rivoli MilanoTorino on March 16 2022 in Milan Italy Photo by Tim de WaeleGetty Images
Mark Cavendish celebrates after winning the recent Milano-Torino (Image credit: Tim de WaeleGetty Images)

Mark Cavendish will lead QuickStep-AlphaVinyl into the Flemish Classics, taking the reins as protected sprinter at the Minerva Classic Brugge-De Panne on Wednesday. 

Fabio Jakobsen was expected to be the Belgian team's sprint card for the cobbled races, and won Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne last month, but will step aside after a surprise call-up for Milan-San Remo at the weekend. 

Patrick Fletcher

Patrick is a freelance sports writer and editor. He’s an NCTJ-accredited journalist with a bachelor’s degree in modern languages (French and Spanish). Patrick worked full-time at Cyclingnews for eight years between 2015 and 2023, latterly as Deputy Editor.