Saturday 6 February 2016 15:48, UK
Mark Cavendish has admitted he will find it "very difficult" to beat Marcel Kittel in sprints this season.
Cavendish was soundly defeated by the German on both stage one and four of the Dubai Tour, despite producing his most powerful road sprint in more than four years in Saturday's race finale.
Kittel won only once in an illness-ravaged 2015 season but moved from Giant-Alpecin to Etixx - Quick-Step over the winter and appeared back to his best form in Dubai.
Cavendish, who has spent the winter training on the track, said at stage four's finish line: "I have just looked at my power and it's the highest power I have had in a road sprint - I didn't have a power meter on the first stage - since before Sky, so since 2011.
"I know that my performance is pretty decent; it just so happens that I'm racing against not really a standard rider.
"Marcel Kittel on his own is going to be difficult to beat, but Marcel Kittel with a year's holiday and a whole winter's preparation is very, very difficult to beat, especially when I have only trained on the track."
Cavendish has been training on the track in an attempt to win Great Britain's lone place in the omnium at the Olympic Games in Rio this summer.
The 30-year-old Manxman joined South African squad Dimension Data from Belgian super-team Etixx - Quick-Step on January 1 partly because they are happy to accommodate his track ambitions, and although he appears some way off Kittel's pace, he has no regrets about the move.
He added: "I knew that was going to be the situation when I left Quick-Step. I worked with those guys and they always did a superb job for me.
"If I wanted to carry on sitting there and sprinting, things might be different, but I'm quite looking forward to the new challenges here at Dimension Data."
Cavendish will now race the Tour of Qatar from Monday, February 8, to Friday, February 12, before turning his attentions to the UCI Track Cycling World Championships in London from March 2-6.
He said: "I'm looking forward to seeing how I fare up after this [the Dubai Tour]. I've only got a day's break. I would like to see how my endurance is going to be. Probably not very good, but hopefully I'll get my endurance out of that [the Tour of Qatar]. And then we can look at my programme for the track worlds after that."
