Ahead of the upcoming Classics campaign, Greg van Avermaet of BMC spoke to PEZ Cycling about his goals and his belief that he can finally win a big classic in 2015.

He believes that he can beat Cancellara and Boonen, saying that the gap between those two and the likes of van Avermaet and Sep Vanmarcke and Peter Sagan is closing with each season.

“Yeah I think so, I think I was pretty close this year. I’m always making small progressions every year and the gap is definitely getting closer and closer. Hopefully I can win a big Classic, last year I was already close in Flanders and we will see how it goes. I’m just going to prepare myself as well as possible and then for sure I can beat those guys also.”

Having lost the sprint in Het Nieuwsblad and the Tour of Flanders, he ahs spent the winter working on his sprint to improve it. This is all an attempt to help him win the bigger races in 2015 that he so desires.

“I want to improve my sprint for sure. I lost a few sprints last year and…yeah I was second a few times and it would be good if I can hit the first spot. That has been one of my working points for sure; sprinting and the power when I’m sitting, I have to improve there, especially on the cobbles.”

As for after the Classics, he will turn his attention to the Worlds, where he hopes to lead the Belgian squad after finishing fifth last year.

“It’s hard to tell because for me always the spring is the most important part of the season and I focus on this and then after I’m looking a little bit to what is left. But I think I’m going to try to do the same as last year, the Worlds are going to be a focus for me again because Richmond will be a good parcour for me, it’s more kind of Flemish style, so I will look to be good there, the rest I will have to figure out.”

He has improved his climbing and he says he could lose weight to focus on the Ardennes Classics, but for now he is all about the Cobbles.

“I always like the Tour of Belgium and in those kind of races I like to go for GC, but the others like Paris-Nice and Tirreno are to hard for me, so I always focus on the Classics and then, like this year, I went to the Tour. I try to do something about my weight and if I’m a little bit lighter I can go pretty well up hill and I could maybe also be a contender in Liege. But no, my main focus is on Flanders and then sometimes it’s better you are a little bit heavier, like one or two kilos heavier, so you have the strength and the power to attack on the small climbs. For the Tour I lost some weight as the team had asked me to be ready for the first week and you could see that I can climb pretty well.”

He says he has had enough of being a nearly man and will not be satisfied until he has a big race on his palmares, and that a Vuelta stage and Paris-Tours is not enough.

“No, I really want to win. I want to have a big win, that would be the highlight of my career. I have a good career but not the biggest one, so yeah it’s always the goal to win the big races. I’ve been waiting pretty long for it, since my win in Paris-Tours. That is kind of different from carrying of a win in Flanders, Roubaix or Sanremo; those are the kind of races you dream of and I would love to win a race before May, that would be pretty good.”

He says he will target a win early on in the season to give him confidence ahead of the Cobbles, but he also has more faith in himself after riding the Tour de France.

“Its very important to have that win early in the year, but also the Tour helped me, it was my first Grand Tour in two or three years, so I came out of three weeks of racing with some extra power and also from the Eneco Tour. I’m always like this, after the first win it’s getting easier. It’s hard to say, but it must be mental but also there is more confidence about picking the right moment.”

He says he still has the killer instinct to win races, despite becoming less prolific in recent years.

“It’s strange because when I was in the Under 23’s I was really like a winner. I won the most races in my category and then in my first year as a pro it was still there, but then I lost it a little. I think I’m the sort of guy who is on around five or six wins, but it is hard for me to get this. I still have the killer instinct and I have the capability to take these wins, but sometimes it’s not coming out.”