Peter Sagan’s (Bora-Hansgrohe) 2020 season has begun to take shape with the three-time world champion confirming that the Spring Classics, Giro d’Italia, and Tour de France will form the basis of his campaign. The 29-year-old was in Milan on Thursday to watch the unveiling of the 2020 Giro d’Italia, before confirming that he would make his debut in the race.
The decision marks a departure from Sagan’s typical programme with May's Tour of California dropped and a possibility of the Tour Down Under also being shelved. Sagan has used the Australian WorldTour race to open each of the last two of his campaigns.
Sagan’s busy first half of the season also suggests that the Olympic Games road race does not factor highly on his list of targets, with the rider himself confirming on Thursday that the Tokyo course could be too demanding for a rider of his skillset.
“Well I always said that I wanted to race the Giro d’Italia before I finished my career. So maybe after the Giro I’ll finish. That’s just a joke but I’m happy that the race comes so close to Slovakia. It’s going to be a really tough season for me with Classics, Giro and Tour. It’s going to be different to riding the Tour. It’s a different country and I have a lot of fans here in Italy. I don’t know about the favourite stages, I need to see more about the route. I have to plan my season because it’s going to be tough but I want to try something new. The Olympics parcours are not for me,” he told reporters in Milan.
Sagan, a record-setting seven-time winner of the Tour de France’s green jersey, will target stages in both the Giro and the Tour next year but with such a demanding stretch of racing the Bora-Hansroghe leader is aware that he will need to tweak his race and training plans after several years of relative certainty.
"In 2020 we'll see what I can do by combining it with the Tour but for sure it'll be different. The Giro comes soon after the Classics and then there's only a month until the Tour starts. So perhaps I won't have time to ride the Slovakian national championships. I need to carefully organise my racing and training. The spring will be similar I suppose. I'll ride in Argentina, Tirreno-Adriatico and the Classics.”
Sagan’s more immediate plans include a Gran Fondo in November in California before a team training camp in Mallorca, Spain. That said, he is already been ear-marked as a potential candidate for the maglia rosa during the Giro’s first week with the race starting in Hungary.
"It's still a long away, six months or so… We need to see how good my form is and I feel in the first few days. We'll see.”
