Eyeing the GC at the Tirreno

How are you feeling before your first stage race of this season?I´ve done two one-day races and during the Strade Bianche I felt that my form was on a rise. I believe that I will be able to be competitive  all seven days because I´ve trained really hard. I remain optimistic although I am riding Tirreno for the first time and I don’t know all the tough climbs in detail.What will make you happy?I want to show my best qualities and I have great expectations for the GC rather than for a success in a single stage. But I am not making any definite predictions now. We will see how things go.How do you assess the competition at the start of the Tirreno-Adriatico?There will much bigger competition than at the Paris-Nice with the defending champion Evans , Nibali, Scarponi, Rodriguez or Peter Velits. All those riders are top contenders for overall victory but we are bringing a strong team as well and we can succeed.What do you think of the two time trials?The first one is flat and seems relatively easy, we need to finish all together and lose as little time as possible. The other one is very short and it will depend on how much energy every rider will save. It is not the time trials that I am worried about. I dedicated a lot of time to practicing them and I believe that I will do better than I did last year.