Domenico Pozzovivo plans to target the Giro d’Italia’s podium this May as he leads his new Bahrain-Merida team. Pozzovivo finished sixth overall in last year’s Giro at 3:11 down on the winner Tom Dumoulin, and cracked the top five in 2014. He might be 35, but he believes that he can still improve on that at this year’s edition.
“Why not try for the podium,” said Pozzovivo. “It will be difficult but I think that it is achievable. It will depend on who will be at the start. Until now, we don’t know a lot about who will take part in the Giro, maybe Fabio Aru will, we don’t know. We won’t know until all the other leaders will announce their programmes.
The Giro d’Italia is in the forefront of Pozzovivo’s mind but he is also down to head to the Tour de France to help out his new Bahrain-Merida teammate Vincenzo Nibali. Pozzovivo joined Bahrain-Merida over the winter to bolster their support network around Nibali, but will also get the chance to take on his own goals throughout the season. The Italian also has his hopes set on donning the maglia azzurra in Innsbruck at the UCI Road World Championships in September.
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“My principal objective will be the general classification at the Giro d’Italia and afterwards I will be a teammate for Vincenzo at the Tour de France,” Pozzovivo told Cyclingnews at Bahrain-Merida’s training camp in Hvar, Croatia last month. “I hope that I will be important for him in the mountain stages. After, I hope to be an Italian representative in the World Championships, because the route is very hard this year and I think that I can help Vincenzo this year to try and win the World Championships.”
“It’s usual in the Giro to have a lot of climbing. I think it is a very good route for me. I think that this year I will have to continue to work on my time trialling because I have changed materials and there is an opportunity to train more on the bike.”
One rider that Pozzovivo will have to get the better of in both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France, as a leader and a helper, is Chris Froome. His participation depends on the results of an investigation by the UCI for his too-high level of the asthma drug salbutamol. If Froome is cleared to race in time, the Team Sky rider is planning the Giro-Tour double, races not won back-to-back since Marco Pantani in 1998. Pozzovivo believes that, should he race, Froome will be the clear favourite for the Giro but says that matching his Tour-Vuelta double will be a massive task.
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