With the 2011 season still far off in the distant future, the highly anticipated battle of the words between the world's two most successful sprinters, Andre Greipel and Mark Cavendish has already begun.
Yet, neither has opened their mouth on the topic just yet.
Instead, it's Andre Greipel's new team manager at Omega Pharma-Lotto, Marc Sergeant, who has opened the account.
Unlike Greipel's former team, HTC-Columbia, Sergeant promises that which the prodigious winner, Greipel, never got with Bob Stapleton's team: a start at the biggest race in all of cycling, the Tour de France.
"I promise that Andre will be at the start of the Tour de France," said the Belgian in a short conversation with Rad-Net.de.
Sergeant is not cocky about Greipel's chances though - he says only that he can do it.
"He can beat Mark Cavendish there. It won't be simple, but it is possible."
Indeed, beating Mark Cavendish is a possibility, and it's not simple. If anything, it seems like the best bet in beating Mark Cavendish is to get off to a flying start. If there's anything Cavendish has shown in the past year, it's that it takes him awhile to get going in the Grand Tours, but once he gets going, he's unbeatable. If the trend continues, Greipel should be eyeing those first tough few stages in northwestern France.
Greipel will have to step up in 2011 if he's going to take on the world's fastest man. Cavendish can be beaten, but Greipel hasn't often shown himself in the calibre of the world's best when the world's best all get together and do battle. It goes without saying that the potential is there, but Greipel will need a little bit more if he can rightly assume his spot amongst the world's best like Cavendish, Farrar, and Petacchi in 2011.
Either way, it should be an entertaining Tour de France for Omega Pharma-Lotto in 2011: Gilbert for the first week of tough finishes, Greipel for the bunch sprints, and Van Den Broeck for the overall.