A ban for doping divided Alberto Contador's professional career into two separate chapters, with recently retired Andy Schleck being his main rival in the first part, and Chris Froome in the second. The Spanish climber has no doubts about it. The Tinkoff-Saxo leader also explains his decision to target an extremely tricky Giro-Tour double, revealing that there are some challenges for Grand Tour contender beyond winning yet another maillot jaune in France.

Asked about his main rival in the upcoming 102nd edition of the Tour de France, Contador without any hesitation point out to Team Sky leader. He doesn't even let The Telegraph journalist to tease him a little bit about last year's la Grande Boucle, its winner Vincenzo Nibali or new kid on the block – Nairo Quintana of Movistar.

"No. No. Froome," Contador answered, before giving more thorough explanation in the interview for The Telegraph. "In my opinion, Froome is maybe the biggest rival I have in my career. In my first career it was Andy Schleck and now it is Froome."

Even though Froome shared his concerns about the mountains-heavy route of the 2015 edition of the Tour de France, The Tinkoff-Saxo leader denied suggestions that is plays to disadvantege of his biggest rival.
 
"Froome is a climber. Of course he is also a strong in the time trial but he is a climber. Maybe he wanted more time trials. I remember in 2007 there was close to 120km of time trials when I won for the first time. But at the end of the day the race is the race. The route changes always. You need always to adapt."

Asked about his decision to tackle a tricky Giro-Tour double, certainly making his bid for another yellow jersey more difficult, the 32-year old Spaniard gave an answer which should earn him few more supporters. Apparently there are some bigger challenges in the discipline than collecting titles at the Tour de France..

"I know that it’s a risk because maybe [after the Giro] you cannot be at 100 per cent in the Tour," he says. "And in my opinion the Giro is more hard stages. OK, more hard race is the Tour, but more hard stages is the Giro. But this challenge motivated me... if I win the Tour again, it don’t change a lot for the people. If I win the Giro and the Tour? Yeah, it’s a big difference.”

"People also remember [it] when I finish in cycling. Because not so many riders do this in the past. So for me this is a big motivation and I want to try."