Spaniard Valverde, the 2018 world champion who rides for Movistar, has revealed that he will compete in the Tour de France but primarily use it as preparation for the Tokyo 2020 road race, which is due to take place on July 25 - just six days after the Tour de France is scheduled to reach its conclusion in Paris.

The 39-year-old has competed in every Olympic Games since Athens 2004.

His best finish came at Beijing 2008, when he placed 12th in a race won by compatriot Samuel Sánchez. 

"The objective is to do well in the Classics, do a good Vuelta a España and Worlds, but above all, being an Olympic year, I want to be at 100 per cent at the Games," Valverde was reported as saying by AS.

New Zealand's Bennett, meanwhile, sees the opportunity to ride at Tokyo 2020 as being too good to turn down, despite his team, Jumbo–Visma, shaping up to be strong contenders to win their first-ever Tour de France. 

"The team basically said if you really want to do a good Olympics then the Tour won't work for you," Bennett was reported as saying by New Zealand website Stuff.

"I look at what the other guys are doing, the guys who are going to the Olympics full gas were either going to stop the Tour early or they're going to take it a bit easy in some of the stages, and that just wasn't going to be an option with us because you only have six days from Paris to then get Japan, acclimatise, get over the jet lag and recover from the Tour, then you've got to race."

Jumbo-Visma have confirmed that new signing Tom Dumoulin will co-lead the team at the 2020 Tour de France alongside fellow Dutchman Steven Kruijswijk and Vuelta a España champion Primož Roglič of Slovenia. 

Although Bennett insists he would have loved to have been involved, describing Jumbo-Visma's selection as "the best Tour de France team in many years", he believes he can make his mark at Tokyo 2020.

The men's 234 kilometres road race is due to climb the lower slopes of Mount Fuji.

It will feature a total of 130 riders.

"The Tour will be there for a few years but this is a once-in-a-lifetime Olympics course so I may as well put all my eggs in that basket," Bennett was reported as saying by Stuff.

"It's pretty special, when I did the Olympics last time, it was just after the Tour and the Tour was the big thing and then the Olympics was just to see what I had left.

"But that was two weeks, six days is just impossible. 

"I don't know why they didn't put the road race at the end of the Olympics."