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 Cavendish crashed twice on the second stage of the race. During the season he alternated between riding as a sprinter and as a lead-out man for team-mates, however Cavendish's racing programme was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. After he was not selected for the delayed 2020 Tour de France, Cavendish said that he felt that he was not ready for the Tour, due to a lack of racing and the race's particularly tough, mountainous route, and backed team-mate Mikel Landa's bid for the yellow jersey. He rode in the delayed cobbled classics in the autumn, making a number of early breakaways. At Gent–Wevelgem he stated in an interview with "Sporza" that the race might be his last: He subsequently clarified that the comment related to rumours about subsequent Flemish classic races being cancelled, which turned out not to be the case: after riding in Scheldeprijs, the Tour of Flanders and the Three Days of Brugge-De Panne he declared in an interview with "Het Nieuwsblad" that he had had "(his) best racing month for a long time" and indicated that he wanted to continue racing "for a few more seasons".