After leaving the Giro d’Italia, Tom Boonen has set his sights on three one day races to salvage his injury hit season: the European Championships, Belgian Road Race and Worlds Road Race.

"There's not much more than that, so I have to do it with the races that are there," he smiled as he spoke to Cyclingnews.

He says missing the cobbles classics will not leave him fresher than his rivals come Richmond for the Worlds in September.

"Some people think always like 'he's been out of racing so he'll be fresh' but coming back from an injury costs you much more energy than racing does," he said. "If everything goes well and you have no worries, you can keep racing and it won’t bother you. But if you come back from an injury it takes much more out of you than people really realise. I don't think it's an advantage having an injury, for sure. If you talk to guys who have an injury, it takes much more out of a human being than everyone thinks."

Boonen also said that despite Etixx-QuickStep having a lot of riders to renew this season, he still wants to ride for the team in 2016 as long as there is a spot available for him.

"It's also a thing that there are less places on the team but for me personally I have no ambition about leaving," Boonen said. "We've talked already a little bit and most of the time it doesn't take that long for me to resign the contract but we will see. There hasn't been anything signed yet."