French national champion Valentin Madouas says he is ready to battle the top contenders in this year's Tour de Flanders.

Following third-place finishes in the 2023 and 2022 Tour de Flanders, the 27-year-old Groupama-FDJ racer told L'Équipe newspaper that he will aim for a higher level in 2024 while playing the outsider's role.

With that in mind, Madouas confirmed to L'Équipe that he plans to intensify his winter training program and once again lead a two-horse attack strategy with Classics co-leader Stephane Kühn.

Already a contender for one of the four slots on France's Olympic road race team, Madouas will compete in both the Criterium du Dauphiné and the Tour de France this summer. He once said that he would rather win in Flanders than win a stage at the Tour de France.

"I know I'll be up against the likes of Tadej Pogachar (last year's Flanders winner who will not be competing this year), Wout Van Aert and Mathieu Van Der Pol. It's up to me to make the most of it."

"I believe in myself and I know that if I go into the race at 100% I will be one of the top five physically.

"Tactically, I need to be aggressive and take risks. I am willing to take risks"

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Madouas, who became the first Frenchman since Sylvain Chavanel in 2011 to finish on the podium in second place, with teammate Stephane Cung in fifth, was an outsider in Flanders last year. However, he fell ill the night before and was forced to abandon the race.

The ultra-talented French racer nevertheless bounced back in fine fashion in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, finishing a career-best fifth in La Doyenne in addition to a runner-up finish in Strade Bianche and eighth in the E3 Saxo Classics earlier in the season. At the end of last year, Maduas had his best all-around season to date, winning both the French National Championships, held on a grueling course that included the steep cobbled climb of Mont Cassel, and the Bretagne Classics.

This year, as he told L'Équipe magazine, he significantly stepped up his off-season training program, spending the first week of January in Tenerife for 30 hours of training over six days, and the rest of the month camping in the highlands.

"I'm going to look for an upper limit. I know I am someone who needs a lot of training, but I don't know how far I can go. I've never done this much at this time of the year, and I'm a little tired, but not to the point of exhaustion yet."

"I've never done this much before," he said.

As part of his tough program, Maduas increased the number of intervals from three to four at a time, lengthening each from 90 seconds to two minutes. He also increased his workouts, increasing his total annual training distance from 28,000-29,000 km to 32,000-34,000 km.

"I know what I've been doing. I'm going to be even more thorough, more specific," he said.

Maduas is currently in Tenerife with his team for a three-week high-altitude training camp, with the first race being the Vuelta a Murcia on February 10. He will then compete in the Grand Prix of Almeria (February 11) and the Volta ao Algarve (February 14-18) before beginning his classic campaign in earnest.

"I won't be able to win five monuments," he said.