Next year Luis Leon Sanchez will ride the Giro d'Italia for the first time. In his comeback season at the WorldTour level with the Astana team, the Spaniard will do the Giro-Vuelta double.

In an interview with BiciCiclismo, Luis Leon Sanchez has announced his schedule for the first part of the season: Tour Down Under, Vuelta a Murcia, Clasica Almeria, Vuelta a Andalucía, Paris-Nice, Milan-San Remo, Giro del Trentino and Liege-Bastogne-Liege before he will tackle the Giro d'Italia. Later we will be in Puerto Banus at the start of the Vuelta a Espana.

The big novelty in the program is the Giro which he has never done before. As opposed to this, he has already done six Tours de France and Vueltas a Espana. "I've never raced the Giro. I knew it would be very difficult to make the Tour roster because last year they formed a very strong group and Nibali was very focused on it. It is something I understand," he says.

"To do the Giro-Vuelta double is good. Now I need to work to get ready. In principle, Aru will be an important contender. This year he was on the podium and he finished just behind Contador and Froome in the Vuelta. I don't know if Nibali will be there," he adds.

As usual, Sanchez intends to start the season strongly. "I am eager to start and hope that everything goes well. We are fortunate to be here in the South, in Calpe. We rarely have a bad day, with rain preventing our training. Therefore I want to start well. I will try to be strong in the first races," he says.

Sanchez has four stages of the Tour de France, two wins in Clasica San Sebastian, one overall and four stage victories in Pairs-Nice, four Spanish time trial championships and stage wins in Romandie, Pais Vasco and Down Under. In 2014, he won the mountains jersey at the Vuelta a Espana and won stages in the Vuelta a Castilla y Leon and Tropicale Amissa Bongo.

He rode for Liberty Seguros from 2004 to 2006 before he joined Caisse d'Epargne in 2007. He rode for Rabobank from 2011 and 2012 and Belkin in 2013 and was with Caja Rural last year.