A retirement u-turn, and rides for two WorldTour teams without a single individual victory to his name in 2013 hardly marks out Alessandro Petacchi as a leading sprinter in 2013. However, his part in Mark Cavendish’s victories at the Tour of Britain underlined that there is no substitute for experience in the bunch sprint. Cavendish was quick to praise the 37-year-old after superb lead-outs in the final two stages of the British tour, while Petacchi was unfortunate not to have bagged victory himself in the opening stage, when he was quick to react to the Manxman being boxed in but was pipped on the line by compatriot Elia Viviani.

Nevertheless, the move to the Belgian team appears to have given Ale-Jet a much-needed boost, with a decent showing at the Eneco Tour before he also led the team’s sprinting charge at the season-ending Tour of Beijing. The imperious form of Nacer Bouhanni, coupled with a few tactical errors, denied Petacchi victories but for a rider who had retired six months earlier it was certainly not a bad way to end the year.