Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) was not present as the 2014 Tour de France route was announced in Paris on Wednesday. The Italian Astana team leader was engaged in an event arranged by the RCS, the company behind the Giro d’Italia and La Gazzetta dello Sport, called Gazzetta nel Mediterraneo but has previously announced that he will forgo a defence of his 2013 Giro d’Italia win next year in order to challenge for a win in the Tour de France, which is the only Grand Tour the Sicilian is yet to win.

Given his solid and consistent performances in Grand Tours over the past years, Nibali is hotly tipped to be one of the main challengers for reigning Tour de France winner Chris Froome (Sky). So far Nibali himself has made no public comments on the route for next year’s Tour de France but Astana Sports Director Giuseppe Martinelli talked about the parcours for next year’s Tour, saying it accommodates Nibali’s needs if he is to pose a serious threat to Froome.

“There are stages with difficult climbs that haven’t featured in the Tour together for many years,” Martinelli told Gazzetta dello Sport. “The majority of the climbs are well-known so there probably won’t be any need to go on a lot of reconnaissance tours prior to the Tour,” Martinelli added.

Martinelli noted with some satisfaction that next year’s Tour only includes a very limited number of individual time trial kilometres.

“It’s an advantage for us that the parcours only includes 54 kilometres of individual time trial as this is a discipline in which Nibali must expect to lose a little time compared to Froome.”

Martinelli also pointed to two distinctive characteristics of next year’s mountain stages, one of which should work in Nibali’s favour while the other might be to his disadvantage. Working in Nibali’s favour is the lack of mountain stages on three consecutive days, something that has troubled Nibali in the past. On the other hand, the key Pyrenean stages are relatively short and thus more adapted to more explosive riders.

“However, the experience in this year’s Vuelta was very useful for Nibali in terms of riding mountain stages on several consecutive days. His performances there showed us that he is on the right track for improving in this aspect as well.”

Inevitably, Martinelli also commented on the inclusion of cobblestones on stage five in the 2014 edition of La Grande Boucle.

“The inclusion of cobblestones in the fifth stage is the only new aspect of the Tour even though we had heard rumours,” Martinelli explained. “The fabric of the fifth stage will compel us to decide upon new strategies and to make new choices. It doesn’t make much sense to go on a reconnaissance tour on the cobblestones since such a training ride cannot be compared to a race situation. We’re not talking about the Paris-Roubaix but Nibali might consider participating in the Tour of Flanders. This would provide him with first-hand knowledge of how to battle for position in the narrow passages and how to ride on the cobblestones in a competitive situation. Besides, given the hilly parcours of the Tour of Flanders, who is to say that Nibali couldn’t achieve a good result in the Flanders?”

Vincenzo Nibali defeated Chris Froome at this year’s Tirreno-Adriatico and was in a league of his own in the Giro d’Italia earlier in the season but was absent when Froome crushed the field in the Tour. Next year’s French Grand Tour could see a showdown between the two.