Fabio Aru (Astana) believes he can build on his fifth place at the Tour de France and have a successful Vuelta a España, despite being in the middle of negotiations to decide the next chapter of his career and the team he will ride for in 2018.
The 27-year-old has been widely linked to the UAE Team Emirates squad but has also received an improved offer from the Astana team and secured the backing of the Kazakhstani team for the Vuelta.
As a consequence, Aru has avoided making any formal announcements about his future and has even publicly thanked Astana. He is focused on winning a second Vuelta, knowing that his success of 2015 taught him a lot about Grand Tour racing.
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Aru snatched overall victory from Tom Dumoulin in the 2015 Vuelta when he took the red leader’s jersey on the last climb of the last mountain stage to Cercedilla. This year, he faces tougher opposition, with Chris Froome (Team Sky) chasing a rare Tour-Vuelta double, Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) looking to end his career on a high, and Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida), Romain Bardet (AG2R-La Mondiale), Esteban Chaves, Adam Yates and Simon Yates (Orica-Scott) all real contenders for victory.
“Having won it once gives me an understanding of my chances this year. But, of course, every race is different,” Aru told La Repubblica.
“We’ll discover exactly how good I am stage by stage, I don’t want to make any promises or predictions. I know it’ll be a tough race, it’ll be the hardest Grand Tour of 2017, with lots of mountain finishes right from the start, that need short but intense efforts. There aren’t many big long mountain stages but there are a lot of finishes at 20 per cent.”
Learning at the Tour, making plans for the future
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