Mark Cavendish’s Astana Qazaqstan arrival will be ‘beneficial for everybody’ says Luis Leon Sanchez

Astana Qazaqstan racer Luis Leon Sanchez believes the arrival of Mark Cavendish will be “beneficial for everybody” in the team.

The team’s longest-serving rider Sanchez believes Cavendish can be a “point of reference” in the squad.

“I think it’s beneficial for everybody,” Sanchez, who is currently racing at Vuelta a la Comunitat Valenciana, told Eurosport.

“Because in Astana we need a point of reference, and Cavendish gets a team that’s in the WorldTour, that guarantees him participation in all the WorldTour races and which has been well-established and part of the racing scene for a very long time.

“[The team] would need to change some of its usual features because it’s the first time we’ve had a sprinter of his characteristics, but we’re all delighted he’s here.

“He’s already been in the team training camps, he’s a chaval muy majo [a great guy] who is very approachable. And as for us, we’ll try to be at the level he needs so he can pull off the wins.”

Cavendish has won 34 Tour de France stages in his career which has him level on the all-time list with cycling legend Eddy Merckx.

“It’s something we’d all love to see happen,” he added.

“For Cavendish as a culmination of his career and for the team to be part of that would be something really special.

“We’re going to try it in the Tour, we know it’s not going to be easy, the young riders are coming up fast and some teams are built exclusively around sprinters.

“But we’ll keep forging our own path, in the first races that win likely won’t come through so quickly, but we’ll give it everything to make sure further down the line they do.”

– – –