Filippo Ganna, Elia Viviani and different key members of the boys’s Italian observe group are anticipated to start their 2024 season on the Tour Down Below in Australia earlier than driving the observe Nations Cup in Adelaide on February 2 as key preparation and qualification for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Ganna will anchor the group pursuit squad on the observe and likewise trip the person time trial in Paris, however the competitors schedule means he can’t additionally trip the street race. Ganna has already confirmed that he’ll trip the Giro d’Italia and miss the Tour de France in order that he will be at his finest for Paris.
Italy gained the boys’s group pursuit in Tokyo in 2021 and desires to make up for latest defeats to Denmark in Paris.
“My massive purpose for the season is the Olympics. I’ll do the Giro d’Italia however not the Tour de France,” he confirmed final week on the Giro d’Italia route presentation earlier than beginning his low season.
Viviani is concentrating on the observe with the Omnium and Madison, his attainable objectives in his last look on the Olympics. The 2 Ineos Grenadiers riders are more likely to be joined in Australia by Manlio Moro, who will trip for Movistar in 2024 and maybe Jonathan Milan and Simone Consonni, who’ve nonetheless to finalise their race programmes after their transfer to Lidl-Trek for 2024.
The Italian ladies’s observe squad faces the same observe and street conundrum, with Elisa Balsamo, Chiara Consonni, Martina Fidanza and Martina Alzini having to mix racing with their skilled groups and the nationwide squad.
Italian nationwide observe coach Marco Vila highlighted the issue of mixing a WorldTour street race programme with Olympic ambitions as he revealed the trail to the Paris Olympics for the Italian observe riders.
“The street and observe are incompatible. Ganna will trip the group pursuit and the time trial. There’s extra of an opportunity for the ladies to race extra as a result of the street race is scheduled for Saturday (July 27), and the group pursuit begins on the Tuesday after.”
The Italian nationwide group will maintain coaching camps in Sicily in mid-November and December and do observe work in four-day blocks in Italy, together with one between Christmas and New Yr. The WorldTour riders may also have to mix their nationwide squad coaching with their WorldTour group coaching camps.
The European Championships Netherlands between January 10-14 will probably be a key check for the Italian nationwide observe group, however the Tour Down Below is held on the similar time.
“Viviani, Ganna Moro gained’t trip the European Championships as a result of they’ll most likely have left for the Tour Down Below. However Ineos and Movistar have already given the okay for them to trip the Nations Cup,” Villa advised La Gazzetta dello Sport.
“Milan and Consonni are speaking to their group about their programme, and we’ll quickly know in the event that they’ll trip the European Championships or additionally trip the Tour Down Below. The ladies ought to all be within the Netherlands.”
La Gazzetta dello Sport recommended that Ganna will trip Milan-San Remo (March 16) and Paris-Roubaix (April 7) earlier than once more switching to the observe for the Nations Cup occasion in Milton, Canada, between April 12-14, the ultimate Nations Cup earlier than the Paris Olympics. The likes of Milan and Balsamo may do the identical.
“I hope to have the perfect riders for the boys’s and girls’s group pursuits for Canada. They arrive after the Classics however earlier than any coaching for the boys’s Giro d’Italia,” Villa mentioned.
Outcomes from the 2023 World Championships and the perfect two ends in Nations Cup occasions from 2023 and 2024 are very important for Olympic qualification.