Mark Cavendish will not ride in the Tour de France for the first time since 2007 after Team Dimension Data omitted the sprinter from their squad.

Britain’s 2011 world road race champion has won 30 stages – four shy of Belgian legend Eddy Merckx’s record.

However, in April 2017 the 34-year-old has struggled with illness since being diagnosed with the Epsten-Barr virus which causes glandular fever

This year’s three-week race starts in Brussels on Saturday, 6 July.

Cavendish resumed racing two months after his initial Epstein-Barr diagnosis but broke his collarbone as he crashed out of the 2017 Tour de France.

The Isle of Man rider, who in 2011 was the first Briton to win the Tour’s green points jersey, was eliminated from last year’s race when he finished outside the time limit on stage 11.

Dimension Data team announced in August 2018 that Cavendish was taking a further break from the sport “due to the presence of Epstein-Barr virus”.

Cavendish raced in last month’s Tour of Slovenia, as he has done since 2016 for his Tour de France warm up and then finished 22nd at the British National Championships road race on Sunday.

His best result this season was third on stage three of the Tour of Turkey in April.

Cavendish has been replaced by Italian sprinter Giacomo Nizzolo, who won a stage at the Tour of Slovenia.

Steve Cummings is the only Briton in Dimension Data’s eight-man squad.

The 38-year-old, who won the 2016 Tour of Britain, has won two Tour de France stages, both coming after he was involved in breakaways.

Edvald Boasson Hagen, Stephen Cummings, Reinardt Janse van Rensburg, Michael Valgren, Roman Kreuziger, Giacomo Nizzolo, Ben King Lars Bak