Oleg Tinkov has spoken to BBC Sport about his Grand Tour Challenge and whether he really believes someone can win all three grand Tours in one season.

"OK, I understand that three-week races with just five weeks between them are extremely tough," Tinkov agreed.

He thinks it would be possible if the Grand Tour are shortened to two weeks rather than three, even if some riders don’t share his opinion, even two of his stars, Ivan Basso and Alberto Contador.

"But the solution could be shortening the stages, or the whole race, or perhaps just leave the Tour at three weeks.”

"It's up to the authorities to decide, but I don't see the point of three weeks, to be honest. Why three? I don't see any trouble in shortening them all to two weeks.”

Tinkov is an avid supporter of the idea of the sports biggest riders regularly competing against each other at the biggest events, rather than targeting different races. He has criticized the WorldTour rankings in favour of a new system that judges who really is the best rider.

"It's a big tragedy for the sport - cycling is so big and yet so small," said Tinkov.

"When you look at the fans and viewers, it's one of the biggest in the world. But when it comes to money it's one of the poorest. We need to commercialise the sport better."

Tinkov and his Tinkoff-Saxo team are the archrivals to Dave Brailsford’s Team Sky, but Tinkov says both men want the best for cycling and they push each other’s teams on further.

"You have to have a good rival," admitted the Siberian, who regularly talks  and tweets  about Team Sky. "It's not interesting to fight with a weak enemy. Sky gives us that strong motivation; and I think we do for them. You have to fight.”

"That's good for cycling, like it is in business. Because whenever you get a monopoly the customers get less satisfaction. When you get a situation like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, the consumer wins. We think cycling fans are winning."