ROME (AFP) -- Tadej Pogacar will race the Giro d'Italia for the first time in his career in 2024, the double Tour de France champion announced on Sunday, Dec. 17.

In a video published on social media by the organisers of the Italian Grand Tour, Pogacar is shown landing at Milan's Linate airport and saying "let's go" after stepping into a taxi.

UAE rider Pogacar, 25, will complete his collection of Grand Tours after also competing in the 2019 Vuelta a Espana, where he finished third.

Slovene Pogacar is a popular rider in Italy where he has already racked up a series of big wins.

He is one of three men to win Il Lombardia three years in a row, claimed Strade Bianche last year and the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race in both 2021 and 2022.

The Giro will start on May 4 around Turin, and after three stages in the north-western Piedmont region which borders France, the three-week race will descend to Naples before crossing to the Adriatic to head north to the Alps.

It will finish in Rome for the second straight year, on May 26. Pogacar's countryman Primoz Roglic won this year's edition in the Italian capital.

The Tour de France starts in Florence just over a month later -- the first of four stages in Italy -- before the Olympic Games commence in Paris on July 26.

No one has won the Tour and Giro in the same season since Marco Pantani in 1998.