First reactions following the official presentation of the Italian Grand Tour 2015 edition left no doubts that the route was designed to encourage biggest contenders to take on the Giro-Tour challenge, first proposed by Alberto Contador and Tinkoff-Saxo outfit. Such assumptions were confirmed by race director Mauro Vegni shortly afterwards, who spoke very positively about this idea.

Contador has already confirmed that the next Giro d’Italia edition would be his first major objective of the 2015 season, but his closest rivals remained reluctant to reveal their real intentions when it comes to their race programme.

Even though it seems very unlikely that Chris Froome (Team Sky) or Nairo Quintana (Movistar) will take on the Giro-Tour challenge thrown by Tinkoff-Saxo, organizers of the Italian three-week event did their utmost to make competitive riding in both races possible.

“This Giro is designed so that a rider – and Alberto was the first to float this idea – can allow himself to ride the Giro d’Italia and try to win it, and then go to the Tour, be competitive and try to win that too,” Vegni said. “I don’t think that the Giro can do any more than that.”

“This idea floated by Alberto is right, I think, not because the Giro d’Italia needs to counter the power of the Tour, but simply because it’s in line with what the people want,” Vegni said. “People want to see the best riders competing on all terrains. For a few years, the riders who have done the Giro haven’t gone to the Tour, and vice-versa.

“We’d like to see everybody at the same level, doing the same races. We’d recreate the duels that made the history of this sport. It’s clear that it’s more in the interest of the Giro than the Tour to advance this idea, but I believe it would be good for the people.”

Even though next year’s edition of the Italian Grand Tour was quickly criticized for avoiding southern regions of the country, Vegni emphasized that reducing transfers was one of their main objectives. He also stated that a less mountain-heavy route won’t make the event less exciting.

“In recent years, we’ve had fewer transfers. It’s difficult but more human, because it’s not true that a difficult race is an inhuman one,” he said. “I’ll probably be criticised for not having enough of southern Italy in the course but covering all 20 regions is impossible. When you reach 13 or 14, you’ve done the most you can. We’re starting in the north and have to finish there, so we couldn’t do more than that without putting in big transfers.”

“You win this Giro every day, by gathering a little more hay in the barn, because every day is a hard day and you always have to be alert,” he said. “The first week has almost 10,000m of altitude gain, which means that if you’re not careful you’ll start the second week already three or four minutes down on GC.”