Cav curtails season

Mark Cavendish has brought his season to an early close and will not ride Paris-Tours next month.

Columbia-HTC's directeur sportif Brian Holm has confirmed the Manx Missile would not line up for the sprinters' classic on October 11th, citing the long season Cav has had, coupled with recent illness.

Since his first outing of the road season at the Tour of Qatar in February Cav has had 84 days of racing.

The sprint star has won 23 races in 2009, including the Milan-San Remo Classic, three stages of the Giro d'Italia and six stages of the Tour de France, easily bettering his total of 17 victories in 2008.

His two stage wins at the Tour of Missouri earlier this month brought him the 50th and 51st of his professional career.

But all this has taken its toll.

Cav had to pull out of the Missouri race with a lung infection, the remnants of which also caused him to withdraw from the GB elite men's squad for the World Championship road race.