After two months out of action, Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) returns to racing on Wednesday at the Baloise Belgium Tour before taking aim at Tour de France, the Vuelta a España and before hand the Italian national championships.
Winning a Tour stage and winning the road race at nationals are two things that the Italian has never done before, and could see him complete the triple of stage wins at the Giro d'Italia, Vuelta and Tour.
Ganna hasn't raced since Paris-Roubaix, but in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport before the Baloise Tour, he said he is feeling good as he builds towards those big goals.
"A little better, even, than before the Tirreno-Adriatico, which in a way I can consider the highest point of the season in terms of performance," he told La Gazzetta dello Sport of his fitness.
"I still have some time to refine everything before the important events."
Ganna's time off the bike – which included skipping the Giro d'Italia in favour of other goals – saw him training hard at altitude and spending time in the wind tunnel and on the track to continue to refine his set-up and equipment ahead of the time trials at nationals and the Tour.
However, as well as winning on his TT bike, Ganna would like to add the Italian road title to his palmarès for the first time, something he admits will be difficult but certainly a possibility after his stand-out performances in the Classics this spring.
"I know that it will be anything but simple," he said. "There will be teams with many riders, fierce opponents, while I will only have Salvatore Puccio as a teammate, returning after his crash and injury at the Tour of the Alps in April. But I will try. It will be up to the others to control the race, it will be up to me to try to exploit any mistakes."
After nationals, Ganna is – if selected – set for the Tour de France, where his main ambition is to win a stage to add to his victories at the Giro and Vuelta, and join the club of riders who have completed this triple.
Ganna could certainly win a road stage, but will also be looking at the one flat time trial in the race, on stage 5, though he'll be up against the GC riders, including world champion Remco Evenepoel, who will likely be his biggest rival.
"In the last two World Championships and at the Olympics he beat me, not by much, but he beat me. So I would say he's the rider to beat," Ganna said when asked about Evenepoel.
"Of course, if I put a number on my back, I never set out to come in second. Plus, in a Grand Tour, the time trials follow a different logic to the one-off races of the Olympics and World Championships."
Ganna called his hiatus from racing the "right break to make" after the spring, but what remains now is to see where he is in terms of racing form.
"I'm curious to see if my feelings in training will be reflected in competition, and in comparison with my opponents," he said.
The Baloise Belgium Tour will be the first test, before the Italian time trial championships on June 26, the road race on June 29, and the start of the Tour on July 5.
