Chris Froome may skip 2015 Tour de France

Chris Froome

London, Oct 22 (IANS)

British cyclist Chris Froome said after the unveiling of the tour route Wednesday that he may not compete in the 2015 Tour de France.

Froome, the 2013 winner of Team Sky, crashed out of the competition this year. He said he may ride in the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana tours.

"The team and I will give it some careful consideration before we make any commitments to which of the grand tours I will compete in," he was quoted as saying by BBC.

Current champion Vincenzo Nibali and Spain's Alberto Contador will start as favourites over a tough course.

"I see myself as quite a balanced general classification rider and the Giro, with it's inclusion of a long trial time of 60km and tough uphill finishes, will make it a well-balanced race which suits me well,' he said.

"If I did the Giro I may also be able to get myself back to top shape for the Vuelta and go there with a realistic chance of aiming for the win. In the past I've only targeted one grand tour each season but it could be a good opportunity for me to focus seriously on two."

The 2015 Tour de France route which will be raced over three weeks from July 4 to 26.

There are five mountain-top finishes but only 14km of individual time trial.

"There's no two ways about it, next year's Tour is going to be about the mountains. There's very little emphasis on time trialling which means the race will be decided up in the high mountains. It is going to be an aggressive and massively demanding race," the 29-year-old said.