Omega Pharma-Quick Step Patrick Lefevere has made it clear that Mark Cavendish cannot expect to be the sole grand tour leader in 2014. With the signing of Rigoberto Uran, the Belgian team will have an increased focus on the GC and so Uran and Cavendish will have to co-exist.

Mark Cavendish felt betrayed by the Sky team when he found out that there was no room for him to chase the green jersey at the 2012 Tour de France. All focus was on Bradley Wiggins' quest to win the yellow jersey and Cavendish was often left to fend for himself in the sprints.

"I realised the promise I had signed to Sky on wasn't really a promise," Cavendish told the Telegraph last November. "I was a back-up rider."
 

The situation prompted him to leave the team two years earlier than planned and signed a contract with the Omega Pharma-Quick Step team. The Belgian squad offered him complete support in both the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia and he paid back the work of his teammates by winning two and five stages respectively. In the Italian race, he even won the points jersey to complete his collection of grand tour points jerseys.

However, he will once again have to share leadership duties in the season that is about to begin. The Belgian team has never played  a big role in the GC in grand tours but plans to change that trend in 2014. The signing of Rigoberto Uran shows its intentions and the Colombian is looking forward to a chance to lead a team in a three-week race.

And Cavendish will have to accept that he will not be the sole leader in the grand tours.

"The tactics of Omega Pharma-Quick Step are not the tactics of Sky," the team's manager Patrick Lefevere told Cycling Weekly. "You saw this year and last year, Sky has one leader and that's all. That's it. And everyone has to work with the leader. In our team, I was never working with just one leader."

Earlier this year, Lefevere had indicated that Cavendish could skip the Giro to focus solely on the Tour which kicks off in his native England. However, the Manxman has today told La Gazzetta dello Sport that he again plans to do the Giro-Tour double.

That could conflict with Uran who still hasn't decided which of the grand tours to do. Originally, he stated his intention to ride the Tour de France but has recently told Ciclismo Internacional that he is more likely to do the Giro.

Lefevere said that he could race the Giro and Vuelta a España, or go for the Tour next year. In any case, he will ride with Cavendish in at least one grand tour.

"If the team is well-tuned you have to be able to do both [win sprints and ride for the classification]," Lefevere said. "Of course, you can't take Mark Cavendish with seven helpers and put Urán alone. Some of the guys are able to give a hand to both of them.
 

"I hope [Urán] will win a Grand Tour but that's something you are never able to programme, everything has to go well. I don't know how he'll react when he has 100 per cent of the leadership role."
 

Lefevere has done a lot to strengthen the lead-out train with the signings of Mark Renshaw and Alessandro Petacchi. At the same time, riders like Jan Bakelants, Wout Poels and Thomas De Gendt are reinforcements of their roster of climbers.

It will be up to Lefevere to combine those two divisions into one unit for the grand tours in 2014.