Movistar have swiftly dismissed speculation that they could add Mark Cavendish to their roster for the 2023 season, confirming that their roster for next season is already complete.
Cavendish is still without a team for 2023, and a report in La Gazzetta dello Sport on Tuesday floated the hypothesis that he could sign for Movistar due to his longstanding friendship with directeur sportif Max Sciandri.
Movistar promptly defused the rumour with a statement on social media.
“Can we please, kindly remind everyone that we’re at 30 riders on our men’s team for 2023 (the UCI maximum) and this is just the desire of Max, who has been close friends with Cav for a long time,” read a post on the team’s Twitter account.
Movistar have already added a sprinter for 2023 after signing Fernando Gaviria from UAE Team Emirates. The team's other new arrivals for next season are Ruben Guerreiro, who joins from EF Education First-EasyPost, and Ivan Romeo, who graduates to the WorldTour from Hagens Berman Axeon.
Cavendish has raced for QuickStep for the past two seasons, but his departure from the Belgian squad has already been confirmed.
In recent weeks, Cavendish has been heavily linked with a move to Jérôme Pineau’s B&B Hotels squad, but the team cancelled a press conference that had been scheduled for the eve of last week’s Tour de France route presentation.
The team was not included on the initial list of potential 2023 ProTeams published by the UCI last week, though they have until November 15 to complete their application for that status.
Reports in the French media since highlighted uncertainty over a major increase in the second-division team's finances and the arrival of new sponsors, though Pineau expressed confidence when he spoke to Le Telegramme last week: “I have the people to finance my team. I am in constant contact with them. I believe in it, I hope for a nice announcement in November.”
Cavendish, meanwhile, lined out at the ASO-organised Tour de France Criterium event in Singapore on Sunday, though he refused to be drawn on his destination in 2023. “When I know, then you'll hear it,” he told Cyclingnews.
The 37-year-old looked to be on the brink of retirement at the end of the 2020 season before reaching an agreement to return to QuickStep. He enjoyed a remarkable renaissance at Patrick Lefevere’s team, winning four stages at the 2021 Tour de France to equal Eddy Merckx’s all-time record of 34.
Although Cavendish won a stage of the Giro d’Italia and the British national title in 2022, he was omitted from QuickStep’s Tour team in favour of Fabio Jakobsen, thus missing out on the opportunity to take outright possession of the record.
