the season. Cavendish said that it was "incredibly disappointing". 2019 Cavendish returned to racing at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina, after not having raced since August 2018. He finished eighth and later said it was "nice to be back in the peloton". He was not selected for the Tour de France because of strained relations with Team Dimension Data principal and owner Douglas Ryder and other health issues since 2017. In response, Cavendish said he was "absolutely heart-broken" to be missing the tour in which he had competed each year since 2007. Douglas Ryder said it "was multiple people who made that decision" and that "there was a whole team involved". Team performance director, Rolf Aldag, however, said the decision had been made by Ryder alone. Aldag had made his intentions clear of selecting Cavendish for the tour, but later accepted it was ultimately the team owner's decision of who would be on the team. Aldag announced his departure from the team at the end of the season in a statement in early September. Cavendish crashed on stage one of the Tour de Pologne after a touch of wheels around a slow and sharp corner at roughly from the finish; he finished in last place. He was able to finish sixth on stage three, however. He eventually abandoned the race on stage six of the tour to focus on the European Road Championships, where he finished 31st. He was selected by Team Dimension Data to lead the team at the Deutschland Tour and to ride in the Tour of Britain. Bahrain–McLaren (2020) In late October 2019, Cavendish signed with for the 2020 season alongside Mikel Landa, Wout Poels, and Dylan Teuns. The announcement was followed by success in the 2019 Six Days of London where Cavendish, along with Owain Doull, finished second to Elia Viviani & Simone Consonni. At the beginning of 2020 Cavendish had his hopes of competing in the madison at the 2020 Olympics dashed when he was not selected in the British squads for the final round of the 2019–20 Track Cycling World Cup in Milton, Canada or the 2020 Track Cycling World Championships in Berlin, rendering him ineligible to be selected for the Games. He made his debut for Bahrain-McLaren at the Tour of Saudi Arabia in February 2020, where he helped team-mate Phil Bauhaus to two stage wins and the overall win, after