Despite having to put his personal ambitions aside in the French grand tour, Philippe Gilbert has expressed his interest in lining up at this year' Tour de France. The world champion aims to support the GC ambitions of Cadel Evans and possibly Tejay Van Garderen and will use the Tour de Suisse as his final preparation race.

Last year Philippe Gilbert gladly put his own personal ambitions aside at the Tour de France and put his services behind the GC ambitions of defending champion Cadel Evans while also preparing for the Olynpic road race. Having the possibility to race the world's biggest race in the rainbow jersey, the world champion aims to once again spend the month of July in France knowing that his chance to go for personal glory will be limited.

However, his participation has not yet been confirmed and only GC leader Evans and his lieutenant, last year's best young rider Tejay Van Garderen, are assured of being included in the line-up. That appears to cause some frustration for the world champion who has expressed some dissatisfaction in an interview with nieuwsblad.be.

"I do not understand why the team is waiting to communicate the news but I very much want to go," he told the Belgian newspaper. "Officially, I cannot say but I think everyone understands that I will be there and I will ride Switzerland (the Tour de Suisse, ed.) in preparation."

Having skipped the race a couple of years, Gilbert returned to the world's biggest race in his magical 2011 season and won the first stage on the Mont des Alouettes to take hold of the leader's jersey. He fought a hard to win the green jersey but came up short against Mark Cavendish. Last year he was much more anonymous, putting his services behind Evans and Van Garderen while gradually building form for the Olympics.

This year his spring campaign has once again been a far cry from that glorious 2011 season. Nonetheless, he appeared to be much stronger than last year and recently he showed off some good form in the Tour of Belgium where he finished third overall.

Another classics star in the BMC team is Greg Van Avermaet who raced the Tour in 2009 as part of the Lotto line-up but has skipped the French race since. This year he hopes to be back in the spotlight and is part of a 15-rider pre-selection for the event. Like GIlbert, he will use the Tour de Suisse to convince selectors to include him in the line-up.

In Switzerland, the two Belgians will support Van Garderen who will be the designated GC leader for the Swiss WorldTour race.