Nibali will target centenary Giro d'Italia

Bahrain-Merida rider Vincenzo Nibali will be one of the stars attending tonight's official presentation in Milan as he plans to defend the Maglia Rosa

Vincenzo Nibali will be the star of the route presentation for the 100th edition of the Giro d'Italia on Tuesday in Milan.

He has confirmed that he will try to defend the maglia rosa he won this year and chase a third victory.

The 2017 100th centenary edition of the Giro includes stages in Sardinia and Sicily with the first Mountain stage on the slopes of Mount Etna were Nibali used to train. This is followed by a finish in his hometown of Messina.

The route features 9 mountains stages, with 4 mountain top finishes and two individual time trials on stage 10 and the last day in Milan.

It's hoped that the 2017 Giro d'Italia route will provide some epic duels between the likes of Nibali and Aru, now that Nibali has move to Bahrain-Merida and Aru has stayed at Astana.

Nibali will be in Milan for the route presentation before heading to Croatia for Bahrain-Merida's first team training camp while Aru is currently on holiday.

"The idea is to ride the Giro d'Italia. I won't hide that, and attending the official route presentation is an important part of the decision," Nibali told La Gazzetta dello Sport before returning to Italy from the Abu Dhabi Tour.

"However, first we've got to get to know each other at the new team, and so the first get together in Croatia will be very useful to start talking about race programmes. It's the start of a new adventure, and in some ways its like starting from zero with huge motivation."

Nibali will start the 2017 season with his new Bahrain-Merida team at the Tour de San Juan in Argentina January 24-29, which is expected to replace the cancelled Tour de San Luis.

Click here for full details of the 2017 Giro d'Italia Route including all the stages, profiles and more.