Mark Cavendish, who is aiming for a stage record win at this summer's Tour de France, will be backed by an impressive group of support riders, including Michael Morkov, widely regarded as the best lead-out man in the world.

Cavendish's Astana Kazakstan team announced its full lineup on Monday.

The 39-year-old Cavendish will be backed by former Quick-Step teammate Morkov, who played a key supporting role in his last Tour victory in 2021.

Dutch sprinter Ciesse Boll, versatile Italian fast men Davide Ballerini and Michele Gazzoli, and former U23 world champion and all-rounder Evgeny Fedorov will round out the Tour de France lead-out train.

The team also adds Harold Tejada and Alexey Lutsenko (the latter the winner of the 2020 Tour de France summit finish in Masif-Saint Laurent) as options in the battle for mountain stage wins. The Colombian and Kazakh have two faces: their own chances and Cavendish's support. Lutsenko has two top-10 finishes in the Tour GC and could be in contention for the overall prize.

Having put considerable effort into building a sprint train for Cavendish over the winter, the overall lineup is much stronger than in 2023, when he came painfully close to a stage win before crashing out with a broken collarbone.

Aside from Cavendish, Bol, Lutsenko, Fedorov, and Tejada are back with the team for the second year in a row, while the other three (Morkov, Ballerini, and Gazzoli) are additional support riders signed to help the British.

As in 2023, Cavendish will name Mark Renshaw (his former lead out man, who has worked behind the scenes with the Brits for the past year to build the sprint train) as one of the team sport directors for the Tour.

In any case, the biggest focus will be on Cavendish, who will try to add a record-breaking stage win to the six or seven chances that should come to the bunch sprinters this summer. The first of those chances will come on stage 3, which finishes for Turin on Monday, July 1.

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