Oleg Tinkoff is a very confident person. The owner of the Russian team Tinkoff-Saxo expressed that his leader, Alberto Contador, will win both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France. Marco Pantani is the last rider who won in the same year these two three-week races.

“I’m convinced he’s going to win unless something bad happens like in 2014 with a crash or a tactical mistake,” Tinkov explained according to Cyclingnews. “Everyone knows he can win, that’s why they are afraid of him and that’s why they don’t want to go to the Giro.”

Team Sky decided to bet on Richie Porte and Leopold König at the Giro d’Italia, May 9 to 31. Chris Froome said a few days ago that he would prefer to focus only on a second Tour de France win. Vincenzo Nibali (Astana Pro Team) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar Team) will also skip the Italian race.

“Alberto said that he’d go to the Giro and the Tour,” added Tinkov, “and then everybody went to the Tour because they are afraid.”

“In 2013 he wasn’t so good, I criticised him, too, and maybe that partially worked. In 2014, I believe he would’ve won the Tour had he not crashed. It’s too early to judge, but to me, he’s now better than he was in 2014,” added Tinkov. “Of course [he will be tired after the Giro]. Once he comes back he’ll have three to four weeks of recovery. It’s not that much time to recover, it’s a risk to do that, but we do it because we believe that he’s strong enough.

“He’s is the strongest cyclist of the generation now, so he can do that, but of course, Froome, Quintana and Nibali will start the Tour fresh.”