Mark Cavendish looks to have ridden his last race this season after pulling out of the World Championships with a respiratory infection.

The 24-year-old has been in the form of his life in 2009, winning six Tour de France stages and the prestigious Milan-San Remo classic. However, the Briton has opted not to compete in Mendrisio, Switzerland, after failing to recover from an infection picked up at the recent Tour of Missouri in the United States.

British men's coach Rod Ellingworth admitted Cavendish was unlikely to compete again this season, saying: “At the moment, nothing else is planned but it's up to his team to decide his program.”

Cavendish's place on Britain's nine-man road-race team will be taken by Ian Stannard.

Bradley Wiggins, meanwhile, will be bidding for a championship medal later today in the men's individual time trial.

The three-time Olympic track champion has his work cut out against race favourite Fabian Cancellara but is not ruling out a triumph.

He said: “I'd put myself down for a medal with an outside chance of winning it. Going by what I've done in training, how it wentin the Tour of Britain and the numbers I produced at the national time-trial championship I'm certainly on for a medal without a doubt.

“It's a great course for me, a real tester's course, rolling, open roads, sweeping bends and no technical sections whatsoever. There are no tricky descents where I could lose buckets of time to someone like Cancellara.”