After an injury-plagued first season at IAM Cycling, Thomas Löfkvist is hoping for more success in 2014. With his team hoping to receive invitations for both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, the Swede is hoping to ride both races in search of a stage win rather than with a focus on GC.

After several years riding as a domestique at Team Sky, Thomas Löfkvist took a step down in 2013 to get more personal opportunities. Joining the new IAM team, the Swede was one of the major stars that was expected to lead the team in the stage races.

Löfkvist could not have gotten the new chapter in his career off to a better start as he won the Tour Mediteraneen in February. However, things unravelled from there and he never returned to his best form.

A cold hampered him after the Tour Med and he crashed in both the Paris-Nice and Circuit Cycliste Sarthe. training crash left him with a broken finger that forced to miss the Tour de Romandie and made him unable to reach his best form for the Tour de Suisse. Having failed to receive a grand tour invitation, IAM Cycling had made the two Swiss stage races some of their major targets.

In the second part of the season, Löfkvist was again troubled by illness and he ended his season without any major results apart from his early success. In 2014 the plan is to have a more consistent season that will allow him to shine in stage races.

Those races could very well include the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France. The team has reinforced its roster by signing Sylvain Chavanel, Jerome Pineau, Vicente Reynes, Mathias Frank and Roger Kluge. It is a common perception that the presence of Chavanel will be enough for them to earn a ride in the Tour while a berth at the Giro is also very much on the cards.

“The ambition is for the team and I do both the Giro and the Tour but that’s dependent on wildcard invitations," Löfkvist told Cyclingnews. "Then there are the hilly classics and Romandie and Suisse, which are important races for the team.

“There would be two stints of form for me though. Maybe one over Paris-Nice or Tirreno, depending on if we do them. Then after that I’ll switch focus to the Grand Tours.”

Löfkvist has done both races in the past but has enjoyed his most successful moment in the Giro. In 2009 he wore the maglia rosa for a day and was long in GC contention until illness saw him drop down to 25th. The Swede makes it clear that he prefers the Italian grand tour over the world's biggest bike race.

When he was younger, Löfkvist was regarded as a potential grand tour winner but he has never fulfilled those expectations. In fact his best result was 16th at the 2010 Tour de France and the Swede has now recognized that he needs to set himself different targets in the three-week races.

“I’d be going to either races for stage wins," he said. "I think I’d have the capacity to ride for a top ten on GC but that would be if everything went perfectly with no mistakes. I think I have a greater chance of success if I go for stage win.”

Löfkvist has never won an individual stage in a grand tour but was part of the HTC team that won the opening team time trial in the 2009 Giro.