Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) will make his first WorldTour start of 2017 this week at Tirreno-Adriatico, where he will be among the top sprinters in a field that also includes Mark Cavendish and Caleb Ewan.
The Colombian took his maiden WorldTour victory in last year's edition of the race, claiming the third stage to Montalto di Castro. With three wins already under his belt in 2017 – two at the Vuelta a San Juan and a third at Volta ao Algarve – Gaviria will take to the start line in Tirreno on Wednesday keen to stretch his legs racing at the highest level, and hoping to get on the board with a top-tier victory as soon as possible.
"The main objective, I think, is to win," he said Tuesday at the pre-race press conference. "I have always said it, that I always want to win. At the moment, we don't know how the legs are, how they will behave, but we hope to race well with our team tomorrow, to have a beautiful stage and a beautiful week."
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Gaviria will be without his trusted lead-out man Maximiliano Richeze this week. Not yet recovered from crashing out of Strade Bianche, the Argentine was forced to skip the start at Tirreno. Gaviria acknowledged the difficulty of performing without Richeze, while maintaining that the other members of Quick-Step's line-up should still be plenty effective.
"I think a lot changes [without Richeze]. I think I have quite a lot of confidence with Max because we share the same language, and I am fully confident in him because he knows how to do his job well," he said. "So it's a complicated thing, but we hope that he recovers fast, and I think the team is very strong, replacing him with Iljo Keisse. And Tom Boonen I think is really strong, because he is nearing the end of his great career, so I think he is enjoying these last days to the fullest."
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