2025 Tour de France podium finisher Florian Lipowitz has yet to decide his full race program for 2026, but the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe racer knows one thing for sure: next year's Giro d'Italia will not be on the agenda.
A notable third overall and Best Young Rider winner in his first-ever Tour de France participation, Lipowitz ended the race well behind top finishers Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) but ahead of many better-established Grand Tour contenders.
The 25-year-old made it clear in a recent media encounter that he is hoping to return to the Tour de France in 2026, although a full race program will not be unveiled before December at the earliest.
Avoiding the Giro is not, therefore, surprising, with his only result in the Italian Grand Tour set to remain a brief spell in the Best Young Rider's jersey in the first two weeks of the 2024 race, followed by an abandon because of illness.
He did, however, reveal to the media that he has used the 2025 off-season to have an operation on his nasal septum, in an attempt to prevent previous repeat infections.
Regarding 2026, "The Giro is not on the agenda," Lipowitz told the media in comments reported by Cyclingmagazine.de.
"The Tour de France is the biggest race. Everyone probably wants to take part."
"I would like to ride, but of course, a lot can happen during preparation. We'll have to see how the races go, but fundamentally, the Tour is of course an option."
Regarding the recently published 2026 Tour de France route, Lipowitz said he had not looked at it in detail but recognised that the tough final week, which includes a double assault of Alpe d'Huez, suited his abilities
"I often have a bit of trouble getting into the race. I struggled a bit in the first few days this year, but then things went better."
With Remco Evenepoel - the previous rider who finished third in the Tour de France - set to join Lipowitz, Primož Roglič and Jai Hindley, Alexsander Vlasov and Dani Martinez as part of the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe setup in 2026, Lipowitz said simply that he welcomed the Belgian's arrival, commenting, "Of course, it's always nice to have such a successful cyclist on the team."
Regarding his surgery on his nose, Lipowitz told the Tourfunk podcast that he had "been talking about having it done for a while."
It also emerged that after finishing his season in September at the Canada World Cups, he has started his 2026 training earlier than planned, explaining that "I had a six-week break, so my form is pretty bad right now. I'm optimistic that my form will return quickly."
"After last year's successes, expectations are definitely high. I'm trying to put that as much as possible into perspective."
