Coming back from the injury and undergoing a slightly different build-up in order to regain his former aggressiveness, Mark Cavendish is ready to return to his winning ways. The Manxman insists that every single stage won at the Tour de France counts turning down questions about his archrival Marcel Kittel while his sports manager claims that he has nothing to prove. You can't help a feeling, however, that 2015 season will be very decisive when it comes to measuring the Etixx-Quick Step fast finisher against other main forces in sprints.

It seems that Cavendish' build-up towards the 2015 season, supported by several appearances at the track, went in line with all expectations and his injury sustained during the first stage of the last Tour de France is not being mentioned anymore.

It has left its mark, without any doubts, as the 29-year old Manxman very highly measures a value of every single stage won in the French three-week event and claims that he would be satisfied with claiming just one more this season. And no, he didn't add that he meant the one with Arc de Triomphe in a background. Nonetheless, differently than many could expect, he claims that there is no pressure for collecting numerous victories anymore and apparently prefers to focus on their quality instead.

“Not really. I’ve won 25 stages,” he told journalists at a recent media day, according to VeloNews. “If I win one stage at the Tour, I’d be happy. One stage in the Tour is a rider’s career, it makes his career, so it’s a big thing to win one stage each year. You have to give the respect to the Tour de France it deserves.”

When Cavendish suffered a season hampered by illness and injuries, the new king of sprints has been crowned. Rather unsurprisingly the 29-year old Etixx-Quick Step fast finisher refused to measure himself agains Kittel or any other rivals, insisting that a finish line is the only thing he focuses on.

“I concentrate on trying to win bike races. I don’t concentrate on other bike riders. I concentrate on the finish line, and trying to cross it first.”

As it has been recently announced, Milano-Sanremo and Tour de France will be main targets for Cavendish in 2015. Even though nothing else than a victory counts for a sprinter, also Etixx-Quick Step sports manager Rolf Aldag agreed that at this point of his professional career the 29-year old Manxman has nothing more to prove.

“Everyone is measured against the success at the Tour de France,” Aldag told VeloNews. “There was one year, when he won five stages in the Giro, and two in the Tour, and people said he had a bad season … that’s how big the Tour is.”

Discussing issues connected with pressure ahead of the new season, Aldag presented a point of view which seem to have a little bit more to do with reality than mindgames played by Cavendish himself.

“There is a lot of pressure on him, and he wants to prove himself, but he doesn’t have to prove anything,” Aldag said.

“He wants to, he doesn’t have to. If you look at his palmares, 99.5 percent of pro riders will never get there — so is there anything to prove? No.”