When Adam Hansen rolls down the ramp at the Giro's opening TTT tomorrow evening, he will start his eighth consecutive Grand Tour. But the Queenslander doesn't feel fatigued, and is itching to get underway.

“I do not really think about the fact that this is my eighth Grand Tour in a row,” says Hansen. “It doesn't feel like that either. In the run-up to the Giro I had periods of races and training and periods of rest and recovery. It feels like it's the first race of my season.”

Despite what Hansen says, he's already done the Tour Down Under this year, bagging a 9th place overall and the mountain classification. In March, Hansen impressed in the Tirreno-Adriatice, getting a fourth place on the hard stage to Guardiagrele where Contador laid the foundations for his overall victory.

And just last week, the ex-mountainbiker reached the top ten in the Tour of Turkey: “I had a good preparation, and I rode very strongly in the Tour of Turkey, especially in the mountain top finishes. My performances there show that I'm on the right track.”

Hunger to race

As a good part of Hansen's season is taken up by the three Grand Tours, he has a relatively light race program before and between those three-week races. But he likes it that way, preferring to have distinct blocks of racing, resting and training: “I don't need many race kilometers going into a Grand Tour, lots of my preparation I do via training. I want to go to a race and perform. Because I spend a lot of time training at home in between the different races, I always have the hunger to race. Every time I go to a race I want to be there.”

Last year Adam Hansen won stage 7 of the Giro, finishing a stage-long breakaway with a 20-km solo into Pescara. And he wants to repeat that success.

“I want to win a stage this Giro. I have the form for it and I'm even better than last year. Hopefully I can get into a breakaway that makes it to the finish. Next to that I'll have my part in the teamwork, supporting Maxime Monfort in his search for a top ten.”

With Grand Tours being his bread and butter, Hansen welcomes the change of scenery that the Northern Ireland start provides: “It's great that the Giro starts in Northern Ireland. And it's good for the cycling fans in those countries.”