Giro d`Italia race director Mauro Vegni has said that he is hopeful Chris Froome will line up at next year`s edition of the corsa rosa, which gets underway from Jerusalem on May 4, but he dismissed the idea that the route will be designed with the aim of attracting the Team Sky rider to the race. Last week, Froome became only the third rider in history to win the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espaņa in the same year, and the Briton now has the rare opportunity to hold all three Grand Tour titles at the same time, a feat last achieved by Bernard Hinault when he won the Giro-Tour double in 1982 and then claimed the Vuelta the following spring. Froome has not raced the Giro since his first season at Sky in 2010 when he was disqualified from the race for holding onto a police motorbike on the ascent of the Mortirolo. In the intervening period, Froome made a belated and surprising transition into a Grand Tour contender, winning the Tour de France in four of the past five years.ADVERTISEMENT Speaking in Jerusalem after presenting next year`s Israeli Grande Partenza on Monday, Vegni said that he was optimistic that Froome could be persuaded to tackle the Giro in 2018. Vegni will meet with representatives from Sky and other teams at this week`s World Championships in Bergen, though he stressed that it was not simply a question of providing an attractive appearance fee or an amenable course. `We`re talking, but as you know, it`s not a matter of economics, despite what some people think. For a rider like that, money doesn`t change his life. He must have a project in mind, and we`re working on motivating him,` Vegni told Cyclingnews. `He`s a rider who`s won the Tour and the Vuelta, and now he could be the first rider to win the Tour, Vuelta and Giro in succession [since the Grand Tour calendar changed in 1995 - ed.] That could be a motivation for him. I`m hopeful. `I remember speaking to Froome before and I told him to do at least one Giro aiming for the win before he r ...
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