The Astana team have confirmed that Fabio Aru will ride the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España in 2017, highlighting the Italian Grand Tour as the most important race of their season. Jakob Fuglsang and Miguel Angel Lopez will enjoy dual leadership at the Tour de France in July.
After a trying Tour de France debut this year and the announcement of a Grande Partenza for the 2017 Giro in his home region of Sardinia, Aru was always likely to return to the corsa rosa, where he was 3rd in 2014 and 2nd in 2015. That was confirmed at the weekend as the team's management gathered in Astana, the Kazakh capital, to look back on the 2016 season and outline their plans for 2017.
"It became known that the main goal of the team will be the Giro d'Italia, a Grand Tour where Fabio Aru, an Italian captain of the team, will go on his marks," read a statement from the team.
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"The sports directors are planning to appoint Jakob Fuglsang, a silver medalist of the last Olympiad and Miguel Angel Lopez, a Colombian rider, as the captains at the Tour de France. As for the Vuelta a España, according to preliminary information, Fabio Aru will once again go on his marks."
Aru built his 2016 season around the Tour de France but struggled throughout and cracked on the road to Morzine on the penultimate day, finishing 13th overall at nearly 20 minutes down on Chris Froome. His 2017 programme sees him revert to the Giro-Vuelta double that worked so well for him in 2015, when he was second in Italy and victorious in Spain.
Fuglsang, seventh overall at the 2013 Tour de France, recently told Cyclingnews he hoped to lead the team at next year's Tour de France, saying: "I would like to try one more time and get the chance to try and get something out of it."
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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