Even if the Tour de France will be his main goal in 2016, Thibaut Pinot explained during his first training camp in Calpe, Spain, that the Rio Olynpics will be also his one of the big objectives of the season.

This summer he was at the start of the rest event won by Alexis Vuillermoz.

"Absolutely, yes it is a race I’d love to win. It’s hard to assess an Olympic course before you have raced on it, because in the run-up you hear all sorts of things", the FDJ leader told CyclingWeekly. "I had been told that it was hard, that it was a sort of Liège-Bastogne-Liège type of race, but it’s a lot harder than that, it’s probably closer to the Tour of Lombardy, but in any case it’s a real climbers’ course."

Pinot thinks that the Olympics will be harder than spring classics. "When you consider that the longest climbs in Liège are maybe three kilometers long, well, the final climb in Rio is nearer seven kilometers, so it’s a really tough course, a good course for me, I was pleasantly surprised!"