Cavendish joins GB squad for team pursuit showdown with Team Wiggins

Mark Cavendish will roll back the years at the Revolution Track Series in Manchester on January 2 as he joins the Great Britain team pursuit line-up for a showdown with Team Wiggins.

The two super-squads will go head-to-head at the National Cycling Centre, with Cavendish joining Ollie Wood, Matt Gibson and Chris Latham against the Team Wiggins quartet of Andy Tennant, Steven Burke, Jon Dibben and Owain Doull.

Sadly, Sir Bradley Wiggins himself is absent from the event - so we will be denied the spectacle of a Cavendish vs Wiggins pursuit.

>>> Cavendish to make Dimension Data bow at Great Ocean Road Race

Cavendish won the British national team pursuit title in 2005 alongside Ed Clancy, Steve Cummings and Geraint Thomas. After failing to win a medal at the 2008 Olympic Games madison with Wiggins, Cavendish switched solely to the road where he continued to find unprecedented success as a sprinter, winning over 100 races and becoming Britain's most successful road rider in history.

However, Cavendish has steadily gone back to the track over the past couple of seasons and is now aiming to represent GB in the omnium at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

"I’m pleased that the Revolution organisers have given us the opportunity to run a team pursuit with GB versus Team Wiggins,” said Great Britain endurance head coach Heiko Salzwedel.

Watch: Five ways to keep fit at work

"For the GB team including Mark Cavendish it will be a good test ahead of the Hong Kong World Cup. For the Team Wiggins riders we want to see if they are on the right track – it will be quite interesting and we will be using it as a performance assessment to see how everyone stands up at this point in our preparations."

>>> Mark Cavendish headlines Manchester round of Revolution Series in January

Cavendish has already been confirmed to take part in the third and final round of the UCI Track World Cup in Hong Kong over January 16-17.

Visit the Revolution Track Cycling website for more event information and online ticket booking. The event will be shown live on British Eurosport between 8-10pm.