Having improved steadily since his breakthrough at the highest level in 2015, Ilnur Zakarin will target a new milestone in 2017: to finish among the best in a Grand Tour. This year he had a good start during the Giro, but a terrible crash on the Col d'Agnel during the nineteenth stage did not allow him to finish in the - or improve on the - fifth place that he then occupied. Later the Russian started the Tour de France with the sole aim of getting a stage victory. He did not succeed in Culoz but perfectly fulfilled his mission at the spectacular finish at the dam of Emosson Finhaut.

Now with two successful stages in Grand Tours - he won in Imola at the 2015 Giro - the 27-year-old Russian will now try to be in the top end of the final classification of the three-week race. As indicated by his manager Viacheslav Ekimov in an interview with F-Sport, he has set his sights on the Giro where he has amends to make, and the Vuelta where he will make his debut. Thus he postpones his attempt at the Tour.

The Katusha rider has already had his say in one-week stage races, having won the Tour de Romandie, taken fourth in Paris-Nice and the Tour of Poland, seventh in the Tour of Catalonia and ninth in the Tour of the Basque Country.