This year Lotto Soudal’s German sprint ace, Andre Greipel, dominated the majority of the sprint stages in the Tour de France, bagging four stage wins, including the prestigious final stage on the celebrated Champs Elysees. As next year’s Tour route was revealed in Paris today, Greipel was swift to identify the beckoning opportunities for the sprinters in 2016.

“It’s a pretty tough one, there are no easy stages at the Tour,” he told Cyclingnews.com.

“The first stages are a chance for the sprinters to get the yellow jersey and there aren’t too many opportunities in a career to get the yellow. There will be always a fight of generations. It is always nice to challenge yourself, push yourself to higher limits. Sprinting has always been interesting in the Tour de France; it’s nice to see all the generations fighting for the stage wins.”

Sagan unlikely to forfeit green jersey

Inevitably, Greipel was also quizzed about a possible assault on the green jersey that has been monopolized by Tinkoff-Saxo’s Peter Sagan in recent years. Speaking of his ambitions about the green points jersey in 2016, Greipel was quick to dispel any such thoughts, stating that he much prefers stage wins and that Sagan seems unlikely to abandon his quest for another green jersey: “Stage wins are the biggest target for me,” Greipel explained. “Peter [Sagan] might love the world champion’s jersey [and] so may not go for green, but I don’t think so!”