André Greipel has announced his list of goals for this 2016 season. The Lotto-Soudal rider hopes to shine at the Tour de France. but also has his eyes on the Worlds title in Doha, Qatar.

He will start the season in Spain at the Challenge of Mallorca and be present at the start of the Volta ao Algarve. After that, he will do his first WorldTour race of the season at Paris-Nice and then continue racing at Gent-Wevelgem, Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. He will do both the Giro and the Tour.

"Everyone’s talking about a flat circuit but I looked up the weather from that day in the last years, and I just saw wind," Greipel tells Cyclingnews in Mallorca. "It was like 50 to 60kp/h. The race can be over after 5 kilometres – if there’s a group with 20 guys in front it’d be really hard to catch them. Everyone who knows Qatar will know it will be warmer than usual, but there will be wind as well. You need to be there with a strong team – that’s going to make the difference."

At the World Championships, Germany will have certainly a strong team with Marcel Kittel, John Degenkolb and Andre Greipel. But who will receive the leadership ? "I’ve shown I’m good in these kind of races, I’m always consistent, and I know how to prepare for a race like that. At the end of the day, if the team manager says I won't be the leader then I won’t be the leader, but for me in a World Championships like Qatar you can only have a plan A," Greipel explained.

"There’s no room for a plan B. You need the whole team to support you. You can’t be world champion alone; you have to have the whole team committed to being there."

He told also about the Tour de France. He will have an opportunity to wear the yellow jersey if he wins the first stage. "All the sprinters are aiming for it, so it will be a real battle," says Greipel. "During the sprint you don’t think ‘ah it’s going to be the yellow jersey for the winner’. It’s not like that – at least for me it’s not. You’re just concentrating on trying to do everything right, to be there with your teammates."