Bora-Hansgrohe team manager Ralf Denk and senior director sportif Enrico Poitske have announced that Peter Sagan will miss the October Cobbled Classics and will compete in both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France this season, according to the original He has made it clear that he will stick to his race program.

With the Tour de France taking place in September and the Giro d'Italia in October, Sagan will have to ride 42 stages of the two Grand Tours in just 58 days.

According to Poitske, Sagan will start the race on August 1 in Strade Bianche, then ride Milan-Torino and Milan-San Remo on August 8, and the Criterium du Dauphiné before the Tour de France.

Beulah Hansgrohe is gathering in Austria's Ötztal Alps for high-altitude training for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic caused races to be suspended and blockaded across Europe.

In a series of video calls, Denk and Poitschke confirmed their goals for the resumed race. Denk also confirmed that all riders and staff had been paid, even though there was no race, because sponsors honored their contracts.

"Peter has decided to start the Giro," Poitske confirmed.

"We have a clear goal of what we want to do with the leaders and that hasn't changed much. We want to compete in the Tour de France with Emmanuel [Buchmann] as captain and our goal is to be on the podium or close to the podium. Peter will also compete in the Tour de France and aim for the green jersey. He also intends to win one of the Monuments. The only difference is the classics, which is complicated by the fact that I have the Giro at the same time."

Denk said he wants to keep his gentlemen's agreement with RCS Sport, the organizers of the Giro d'Italia.

"I promised Peter that he would be in the Giro, and Peter did," Denk said.

"That's our style and the way we work. It was a handshake agreement, but it's very important to us and we intend to keep this agreement. So Peter will fulfill this contract and will have the full support of the team."

Bora-Hansgrohe announced that Sagan, Buchmann, and Paris-Nice winner Maximilian Schachmann had been selected for the Tour de France.

When the UCI changed its race calendar in response to COVID 1-9, it decided to overlap many classics with the Giro d'Italia, so for the first time since 2013, Sagan will miss cobbled Tour de Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and Ghent-Wevelgem He will miss races such as the Tour de Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and Ghent-Wevelgem.

The 2020 Giro will be held October 3-25, with the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix rescheduled for October 18 and October 25, respectively. Sagan won Paris-Roubaix in 2018 and the Tour of Flanders in 2016.

In previous years, since 2010, Sagan has taken the now-defunct Tour of California in May after the cobbled classics and before the Tour de France.

This will be Sagan's first Giro d'Italia, and he will be looking to add the Ciclamino points jersey from this race to the seven or eight green points jerseys he won in the Tour de France.

Denk agreed that the new calendar is not fair for the Giro d'Italia: only the Tirreno-Adriatico and the Grand Prix of Quebec and Montreal will be held at the Tour de France in September, while the Ardennes and cobbled classics will be held at the same time as the Giro d'Italia October.

"It is not fair to the Giro to have all the Classics at the same time as the Giro," Denk said.

"If it were my decision, there would be more respect for the Giro, but we have to manage it. It is better to race longer in the winter. For example, we could delay the Vuelta a España race by three weeks to make room for the Classics. As it stands, we have to do something."