Former sprinter Mark Renshaw has joined Astana Qazaqstan as a directeur sportif for the upcoming season. The Australian is set to work with Mark Cavendish as the Briton seeks a record-breaking 35th Tour de France stage win next summer.
Renshaw joined the Kazakhstani team last July for the Tour, coming on board as a 'sprint and lead-out consultant' before Cavendish crashed out of the race on stage 8.
He spent nine of his 15 years as a pro racing alongside Cavendish at Highroad, QuickStep, and Dimension Data, cementing himself as one of the top lead-out men in cycling as the duo racked up countless victories together.
Now, he'll be in the team car next season hoping to help Cavendish and his new-look lead-out train to more wins.
"I am very excited to be taking on a director sportif role with Astana Qazaqstan for the upcoming 2024 season," Renshaw said in a team press release. "After working on the Tour de France alongside the staff & riders at Astana Qazaqstan I knew that I have more to give professional cycling.
"With the support of my amazing family to get back into elite sport, I believe I can help lead our talented riders to victories in some of the biggest and best races on the calendar. I need to thank Alexander Vinokourov for giving me this opportunity to pass on my experience to the team.
"We have some huge objectives ahead of us in 2024 and I can't wait to work on achieving these goals with the team."
Cavendish is sticking around in the peloton for 2024 after putting off a planned retirement following his abandon from last year's Tour de France. The 38-year-old this year won the final stage of the Giro d'Italia and came third in Scheldeprijs before taking on the Tour, where he was second to eventual green jersey winner Jasper Philipsen in the stage into Bordeaux.
He'll be joined at Astana by several new signings in a much-strengthened lead-out train, including Michael Mørkøv, Davide Ballerini, Rüdiger Selig, and Max Kanter. With Renshaw in the team car, win number 35 at the Tour is the big aim of what once again figures to be his final season in the peloton.
"We had a very good experience with Mark Renshaw during the Tour de France," Astana boss Vinokourov said. "His help and advice were very useful not only in the matter of sprint issues but also in general in the matter of race strategy.
"We had a nice conversation afterwards; we have a common vision on many things about the team development through the prism of conducting the races and preparation to it. So, I believe that having a young sports director with a different modern vision to cycling would help us to keep on improving."
