Mark Cavendish, who won 14 times this season and recently at the Tour de France during the stage 7 in Fougères, will be free at the end of this season. The British rider has been linked with a number of moves and especially with MTN Qhubeka team.

According to an interview with Cyclingnews, MTN-Qhubeka team principal Doug Ryder confirmed the rumour. "We had some discussions with Mark’s manager but it’s all about funding and there are a whole lot of things that go with it. For us, what is important is the culture that fits into the team and the value that it can bring. We’re not going to change our culture, we’re not going to change the strategy of our team. Those things are really important to us."

The African team would like to be promoted in World Tour. "We have to speak to the UCI on August 1. The rules can be a little bit loose because they would love another WorldTour team but that decision has got to be made in the next two weeks. Once the Tour de France is finished we’ll have a sit down with our partners and strategise and plan for that and so we’ll know in the next two weeks if we should go WorldTour or if we should stabilise the team with what we have at the moment. We’ve always taken small steps to go up and we never want to embark on something we can’t sustain. That will probably be the only factor that we could see us not making WorldTour next year", Douglas explained.

If Cavendish will join MTN Qhubeka, he will find again some riders with who he shared the same jersey: Matthew Goos, Matthews Braimmer, Tyler Farrar...