Roglic's injuries "definitely a lot better" as he looks to defend Vuelta a Espana title

With the Vuelta a Espana right at our doorstep, defending champion Primoz Roglic has talked about his expectations going into the final Grand Tour of the season, the one he has won for the past three years and will look to defend it.

Talking to journalists this morning ahead of the start, he has reponded to how his recovery and injuries from the Tour de France crash are: “At the moment, it’s definitely a lot better than it was. In some ways, I can still feel some things, but we will see". He will start as the undisputed leader of Jumbo-Visma, however with little indication as to which form he's at. "Now I’m here and when I come here, I’m ready. I’m not really thinking about the rest, just myself. In the end, it’ll be how I feel, how things will go. That’s something to keep an eye on. We all start from zero tomorrow," he said.

He will be facing the likes of Jai Hindley, Richard Carapaz, Simon Yates and many more strong climbers. Remco Evenepoel was brought up, to which Roglic said: “Remco doesn’t need to prove it, he already proved he’s a super strong guy on all kinds of terrains". The race will start tomorrow in Utrecht with a team time-trial, something which should be favourable to the Dutch team despite lacking some of it's big names here.

“It’s a nice challenge, something different to start with. We have everything, so we’re going there tomorrow and putting it all on the roads.” Afterwards there will be a route suited to the Slovenian, however with some high mountain stages where the pure climbers should have the upper hand on him, such as the Sierra Nevada day on stage 15.

He was also asked about his abandon from the Tour. “You feel you want to be there, you’re a part of it. But for me, I came to the very end, to the point I couldn’t even do one kilometer anymore," he answered. Although having broken two vertebrae, he was only diagnosed after abandoning the race, having still played a crucial role on stage 11 where Jonas Vingegaard dealt a deadly blow to Tadej Pogacar.

"From that point of view, I had to accept the situation. Still, I was definitely super happy with all the successes we had in the Tour. And the most important thing is try to keep moving, try to keep focus not on the past, but on the future. It’s not about the last game, it’s about the next game, uh," he finished.