Samu still undecided over Tour participation

Samuel Sánchez was naturally present at the unveiling of the 2013 Tour de France parcours today in Paris and, pretty much like everyone else, seemed to like what was presented. He was reticent on if he was going to ride the race though, seeing as a Giro-Vuelta double is an option for him next year - not to mention that his "new" team needs to be sorted out before he can make any plans for the coming campaign.

"It's a balanced route", he told reporters. "There's many climbs, many time trial kilometres, stages with mythical mountains, some untested summit finishes... It's a different Tour to this year's. The truth is though that I don't know if I'll even be there next year. The team has been built pretty much from scratch and right now we have other priorities. We have two months to plan everything, and things will be decided in due course.

"The Tour is the best race in the world and everyone wants to shine there, but we have to to consider the needs of the team and the options offered by the calendar. Facing 2013, we still don't know what we'll do".

And when might we know what he's up to next year? "We'll make a decision on what races to do once the Vuelta is unveiled".