Chris Froome: Coppi e Bartali "was exactly what I needed"

Israel - Premier Tech had a relatively absent stage at the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali last week, although Omer Goldstein came close to the win on the final day. Chris Froome has raced the first kilometers of his season in Italy, and he has given some thoughts on his performance.

In a social media post Froome has said "First race in the bag! Wasn't feeling my best but it was exactly what I needed." Froome has this week kicked off his season in the Italian race, a delayed start after has had damage to a knee tendom over the winter.

It was a modest start, as Froome rolled in in the gruppetto for most of the race days over in Italy. However he stresses that it was a necessary set of hard days in order to ramp up his form.

In April Froome will be riding the Tour of Turkey, and then move onto the Tour de Romandie, a race he's won in 2013 and 2014 and will be looking to put on a strong performance if he wishes to be riding the Tour de France later this summer.