Philippe Gilbert is desperate to add the final three Monuments to his CV before he retires. And if the Belgian has his way, he wont be retiring for a long time, despite being 33.
"I don't even know when I'm going to stop," he says, talking to media at BMC's training camp in Spain on Thursday. "Look at [Davide] Rebellin, he's like 44 – imagine!"
Milan-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix are the three Monuments he needs to complete his set of all five. He confirms Roubaix certainly wont be on his racing schedule in 2017, but Sanremo definitely is and Flanders still hangs in the balance. BMC teammate Greg Van Avermaet leads the team in the cobbles while Gilbert leads in the Ardennes and this may prevent Gilbert from winning the two cobbled races.
Another target is the Olympic Games to go with his Belgian Road race and World Road race titles.
"The Olympics are bigger than anything, " he says. "When you say to people who don't know cycling that you won Liege, they ask you if it's a race – they don't know what it is. If you say you've won a stage in the Tour they start to be interested, the World Championships also, but they don't know the rules – if it's a ranking or a one-day race.”
"But with the Olympics, if you get a medal there everyone knows what it is and the importance [of it]. The impact is very different, especially for a country like Belgium – we never have any success there, maybe a medal like once every 10 years. Even to have a bronze medal is really big."
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