“Gold and gold, that is the dream” - Filippo Ganna to skip the Tour de France to focus on the Olympics

With the Tour de France Grand Départ taking place in Italy this year, one would have thought that every Italian rider would be doing their utmost to be selected for this year’s race. However, Filippo Ganna has opted to skip La Grande Boucle in order to concentrate on the Olympic Games in Paris. The INEOS Grenadiers rider is targeting gold medals in the team pursuit on the track and the individual time trial on the road, as he did in Tokyo three years ago.

In an interview with Velo, Ganna said “it’s too bad to miss the Tour de France in Italy this year, but the Olympics are the Olympics”. The former World Champion will adopt a similar race schedule to the one that he used prior to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, as he plans to race the Giro d’Italia in May, stating that “with the big goals of the Olympics, I want to try to win again in the Giro to give a big morale before Paris”.

Having already done the Tour Down Under and a couple of one-day races in Australia this month, Ganna’s first race in Europe this season is set to be the Volta ao Algarve in February before he returns to Italy to compete in Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-Sanremo and the Tour of the Alps ahead of the Giro d’Italia.

Having finished sixth at last year’s race, Ganna is still unsure whether he will ride Paris-Roubaix in April, as the risks associated with that race mean that a crash could jeopardise his Olympic hopes and he has been very clear that his main objective is two gold medals, stating that “gold and gold, that is the dream”.