Exclusive: Team Sunweb rider Tom Dumoulin relaxed ahead of Giro d’Italia defence

Eurosport’s live and exclusive coverage from every stage of the 2018 Giro d’Italia gets under way on Friday, May 4.

And Team Sunweb rider Dumoulin, who rode to victory in the 100th edition of the Giro last year, is out to prove it was no fluke performance.

“I’m actually in a relaxed mood and I am really looking forward to racing the Giro again,” Dumoulin exclusively told Eurosport.

“I was a bit nervous going in to this season, I was too eager to show everyone that I can do this again, that I’m not a one-day fly but that’s quite a negative, stressful approach heading in to a Grand Tour so I’ve tried to approach it in the same relaxed way I did last year. We will see what happens, but hopefully it works out again.”

Last year’s runner-up Nairo Quintana will not be competing in this year’s edition, though Dumoulin did address the competition Chris Froome poses, with the Briton bidding to claim what has become known as the “Tiger Slam” – holding all three Grand Tour titles at once, following victories in the Tour de France and La Vuelta a Espana in 2017.

“The field is strong as always, last year we had Quintana and Nibali, this year it’s a bit different when it comes to competition,” Dumoulin added.

“Froome is much closer to my type of style than Nibali and Quintana who are purely climbers who need the mountains to attack and take time and I hopefully can take time back on them in the TT’s, that was the situation last year but it will be quite different this year with Froome in the race.

“Like you said, I cannot put a lot of time on him in the TT’s and he has a really strong team who can control the race, which is again, different to last year because there was no real team who took control of the Giro. Quintana had the pink jersey on the last mountain stage and he was left pretty much alone quite early.

“It’s very difficult for a team to control, and with Froome there with a strong team, it’s going to be a very different race.”