Geraint Thomas, who finished 7th in the prologue of Paris-Nice on Sunday, will aim for the yellow jersey in his first European WorldTour stage race of the season. His former teammate Richie Porte will lead BMC Racing Team but the Welshman explained that he won't focus too much on their internal battle.

"You focus on your own race but it will be strange racing against Richie", Thomas told SBS. "Richie, along with Contador, going into it is one of the favourites. He’s won the race twice anyway and Contador has done what he has done so those two stand out for sure. I don’t really know the rest of the field to be honest but I think, especially early on, we want to stick to our plan and race as best we can. For sure when it comes to the crucial GC days Richie and Contador are going to be the guys to watch and they’re the guys that are going to be attacking. When it comes to the mountaintops hopefully I’ll be there around guys like [them]."

Geraint Thomas won the Volta ao Algarve last month by beating Alberto Contador. At the same time, Richie Porte was present at the Tour of Oman where he suffered from an injury. "I didn’t know what to expect going in there with a bit of a slower start to the year. It was a great start and with the calibre of riders there was good for confidence but obviously … a lot of people are going to be getting a lot better particularly now when it’s the first real solid week of racing. I think Paris-Nice will be another really good test. There’s a strong field again and certainly a demanding eight days in front of us, along with the weather. I think we just get stuck in and treat every day as a one-day almost."