Dillon Corkery, behind team mate Julius van den Berg during Paris-Nice the weekend before last (Photo: Xavier Pereyron)
Dillon Corkery (Picnic PostNL) is hopeful of making his Grand Tour debut this year, in his neo-pro season, after returning from an early season back injury to ride his first Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders.
The 27-year-old Cork rider will next pin on numbers at Tour de Romandie (2.UWT), which starts next Tuesday. He then looks set to ride a number of one-day races, including Brussels Cycling Classic (1.Pro).
And though Critérium du Dauphiné (2.UWT) - now called Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (2.UWT) - is still some way off, the Irish rider is also in the mix for selection for that race, which is often used as a Tour de France tune-up.
It is unlikely Corkery would be called up to the team's Giro d'Italia selection at this point, unless changes are required to the Picnic PostNL team already earmarked to ride that race.
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The Tour de France line-up also appears to be set and Corkery probably will not feature in that race this year. However, he can hopefully get a Tour start next season, his second full year at World Tour level.
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"I think I will get a Grand Tour in, but I don't think it will be the Giro or the Tour. But I'm not 100 per cent sure yet," Corkery told stickybottle looking ahead to the remainder of the season.
That obviously raises the prospect he will ride La Vuelta, though his team has not yet confirmed its plans for the Spanish Grand Tour.
Selection for the Vuelta, across all pro teams, is also heavily dependent on riders coming through the season fit and healthy and with some form remaining by the time the race rolls around.
For now, however, Corkery said he was focussed on the next few races, with Romandie first on his list.
"It probably doesn't offer up too many opportunities for me but I'd like to target that the prologue I can, it's 1.5k uphill and 1.5k downhill," he said.
However, he added as some of the best general classification riders look set to ride the race, which is very hilly, it would be hard to take a result, especially for a classics rider like Corkery.
