Mikel Landa was arguably the Grand Tour revelation of the season along with Esteban Chaves and Tom Dumoulin. Having never won a Grand Tour stage before or shown any GC promise, the Astana rider took three Grand Tour wins over 2015, as well as taking third in the Giro, which he may have won had he been outright leader. This caused him to swap Astana Blue for Sky Black for 2016, which he spoke about in an interview with Cyclingnews.

“They (Sky) were very interested in me ever since the beginning of 2015 and they'd been following my progress closely for quite a few years. Then after I got third in the Giro d'Italia, they were much more interested, they offered me a very ambitious overall plan, and that's what made me want to sign for them.”

“In Astana, there were two leaders for the years to come and I couldn't find a space for me. I wanted to try being a leader and this was the way to do it.”

Landa will lead Sky’s Giro team after his standout showing in Italy this year. He says the route isn’t exactly ideal for him as it lacks really tough summit finishes, but he will give it his best shot.

“It could maybe suit me better. I could do with more summit finishes, of the Zoncolan type, for example. That would suit me the best. But it's got a lot of hard stages in the mountains, even if the finishes in the first week aren't as hard as this year's Giro. And I like that time trial, although I'm going to have to work very hard at that: there are three time trials and I can't afford to lose much time there.”

Landa isn’t sure who he will be supported by in Italy, saying that he has a hand in who rides and that it should be agreed by the team’s first winter training camp in Mallorca.

“We'll all decide it, between me, the team and the riders. In the next training camp in Mallorca we'll have a good look at that, I imagine, see which riders I need when we look at the route profile. We have to study the Giro route well.”