With the start of the Tour de France edging ever closer, riders are making their final preparations for the French grand tour as teams announce their squads. To the surprise of nobody, Omega Pharma-Quick Step announced yesterday that they will be constructing their team around sprinter Mark Cavendish.

The British sprinter has never worn the yellow jersey during his career but with the peloton facing a flat road stage from Porto-Vecchio to Bastia on the opening day of the race, he has the opportunity to rectify that situation when the Tour kicks off next week.

“I’d like to wear the yellow jersey after the first stage in Corsica. It’s the only one of the three grand tours where I haven’t worn the leader’s jersey, so I’d like to do that,” Cavendish told Belgian newspaper Sporza.

Cavendish’s rivals at the Tour will include Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) and André Greipel (Lotto Belisol), who each got the better of him in bunch sprints at the Ster ZLM Toer last week in a race where Cavendish failed to reproduce his splendid form from the Giro d’Italia last month. The Dutch race was Cavendish’s first since completing the Giro d’Italia three weeks ago, however, and he will be confident of adding to his running tally of 23 Tour stages next month in France.

“I don’t fear anybody. It’s irrelevant who’s there. There are some strong guys but if you’re looking at the other guys, you’re not looking at the goal, which is crossing the finish line first,” Cavendish said.

Following his switch from Sky to Omega Pharma-Quick Step during the off-season Cavendish has claimed a dozen wins so far this season and true to character he heaped praise on his new teammates and their selfless work, which eased Cavendish’ way to five stage wins and the points competition at the recent Giro d’Italia.

“For me the atmosphere in the team is everything. I’m really an emotional guy and my performance does reflect a lot on how I feel,” Cavendish said. "I’m very happy at Omega Pharma-Quick Step. I think I’ve won the most races out of any rider and they’ve been big races. We had an incredibly successful Giro d’Italia, we had an incredible group there and we’re just pushing on to the Tour de France now.”

OPQS Sports Director Tom Steels pledged that the team was on par to match Cavendish's ambitions at the Tour. “He will be 300 percent motivated and the team is ready,” Steels said. “Everybody would go through fire for Mark.”