With the Tour de France 2018 route already announced and the Giro d’Italia 2018 route to be revealed in eight days time, Vincenzo Nibali says that he is still making up his mind on which race to target next season.
The Italian rider finished second in the Giro in 2017, before skipping the Tour and returning to take third at the Vuelta a España, and says that although he has already decided which races he will compete in until April, he is yet to decide on his main targets for the year.
Nibali will start his season at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina in January, a race which he has competed in on six occasions in its previous guise of the Tour de San Luis, before heading to Europe for the Ardennes Classics.
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“I’ll ride Amstel Gold, La Flèche-Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège,” the Bahrain-Merida rider told Italian newspaper Corriere dello Sport.
“We’ll decide between the Tour and the Giro after we’ve seen the route of the Giro. Liège and the World Championship are two goals that I have already. It is no secret that I want to go back to the Tour, but having the Giro in Sicily would be an opportunity not to be missed.”
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Although yet to be officially announced, the Giro d’Italia is likely to spend time on Nibali’s home island of Sicily following the opening three days in Israel.
A rest day on Monday, May 7 is likely to be spent around the port city of Catania, before three stages around the island including a summit finish on Mount Etna for the second year in succession.
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However despite the attractiveness of returning to race the Giro and its stages on his home island, Nibali also says that he is also drawn to the Tour route, which includes the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix where the Italian thrived and gained time on his way to winning the race overall in 2014.
“In some ways the route is similar [to other routes in the past] and in some ways there are new things,” Nibali continued.
“There’s a lot more pavé this time. Then there’s the 65km stage in the Pyrenées with three climbs in quick succession which will be very demanding and difficult to control; it favours attacks and can spoil everything.”
