Chris Froome has said that it’s “unlikely” that he will ride the Giro d’Italia in 2017 just days after a raft of the sports greats said this was the time for the Tour de France champion to take on the Italian race.

Froome said the 2017 Giro d’Italia route, which contains more time trialling kilometres than the Tour was “interesting”.

>>> Why Chris Froome won’t jeopardise Tour hopes by riding the Giro

He said: “Given the balance of time trials and big mountain stages, it’s going to be an exciting race, for sure. Whether I’ll be there or not, who knows. I think it’s unlikely given my focus is still going to be the Tour.”

However, the three-time Tour winner appeared lukewarm on the 2017 edition’s route. “Now I’ve had a bit of time to digest the Tour de France route a bit more, obviously its very light on time trials, which means the racing will be in the mountains. That said with only three mountain top finishes that leaves very few opportunities for the GC guys to race it out.

“I’m not sure how its all going to pan out, I hope it’ll be an exciting edition but the route makes it look like there will be few big GC battles,” he said.

He added that shorter stages, including the Tours shortest ever full stage at just 100km, wouldn’t necessarily make the race unpredictable.

He said: “The shorter stages your teammates will go further if you break it down more guys to do a shorter distance.

“In my opinion it’s going to be a more controlled Tour route.”

Froome added Sky and him were yet to come up with a programme for 2017 and that his race calendar would be decided in the coming weeks.

His comments follow a host of cycling greats including Felice Gimondi and Francesco Moser calling on Froome to take on the Giro.