Milano-Torino enjoyed a new calendar spot as a prelude to Milano-Sanremo this Wednesday, and Quick-Step AlfaVinyl sprinter Mark Cavendish won the Corso Francia in Rivoli for his third win of 2022.

But instead of warming up at La Classissima, where he won in 2009, Cavendish will start Saturday at the historic Vigorelli Velodrome. Instead, the team called up Fabio Jacobsen after Julian Alaphilippe was sidelined with bronchitis.

At the post-win press conference, Cavendish said he had wanted to return to the race where he had beaten Heinrich Haussler 13 years earlier. However, he said that he had not spoken with the team about competing in Milano-Sanremo.

"Ask the team. 'I don't know, because nobody on the team talked to me about it. Of course I have won. But nobody talked to me about it, so I don't know."

"I'm on a different program this year. I'm going back to Italy for the Giro d'Italia, though."

An intra-team sprint competition between Cavendish and Jacobsen, who has six wins in 2022, has been denied by all parties involved, including team management.

The teams are the main protagonists in the sprint competition at the Tour de France, but for now it is widely believed that Jacobsen will head to France. If Cavendish were to return to the race, he would have a chance to become the sole leader of the Tour's all-time wins list with 35 stage victories.

But Cavendish, who won his 159th victory in Rivoli, said he does not care about records or statistics, he just loves racing.

"I'm not here for the numbers," he said. Numbers are just statistics and I am not a statistical rider. I'm a rider at heart, I just love to race. I have fun with my friends, that's all that matters to me."

Among the friends Cavendish is racing with is lead-out chief executive Michael Morkov, who was Cavendish's last man on Wednesday. The Dane sent Cavendish into the lead group with 150m to go, and the Danish rider was able to pull off a brilliant team effort to win the race.

Once the sprint began, there was little doubt who would win, and Cavendish beat Nacer Bouhanni (Arkea Samsic) and Alexandre Kristoff (Intermarke Wantigover) to end the oldest race in cycling.

"Today we were a team that specializes in full sprints, and with Michal at the end, we had the best chance among everyone," Cavendish said.

"If you take a full sprint team to a race where there are no other full sprint teams, you can dominate. You can also take one lead-out athlete to a race where there are no other sprint teams. [But in a race with many lead-out teams, you need a full team, not just Michael. Luckily, I had that today. We had an unbelievable group of guys."

"Pete Serry was in control, just like he is. He knows exactly what to do. Cattaneo, Devenin, Verweke, Cavagna in his first race back. It's a machine that will control the final."

After praising his teammate for controlling the final line with Total Energies, Cavendish said, "I could have stayed in Morkov's circle longer because he was so fast."

"Michael was on the inside at the last corner and he was calm and when I left his wheel he was still accelerating. He was still accelerating. That's how good he was, and how perfect his timing was, no matter how far behind he was.

"I was a little nervous. I wanted to go a little bit faster and I didn't want to let the other guys get ahead of me. So I'm very happy."

"He's important, not only for me, but for everyone who ran with him," Cavendish added. When you have Mikhail Morkov, that's your best chance."

"If you have a strong team in front of Mikhail, you can win probably 9 or 10 out of 10 sprints.

"We can rely on him. I was lucky to have Michael here, especially in this race for me. Not only Michael, but all seven of us here did our best to win this race.