Edvald Boasson Hagen has been out of competition since the Route du Sud but he insists that he is now rearing to go when he makes his return to racing at the Tour of Poland. He now has a niggling Achilles injury behind him and wants to refind his form of the opening months of the season where he finished third in Het Nieuwsblad.

“I’ve been able to train fully for quite a long time now and I’m hoping to be at a good level when I return to racing in Poland. Training is a lot different from racing though and I want to use that race to get back up to speed and improve my sharpness. It’s been a long time. My last race was back in June, and I didn’t manage to complete that race, or the Giro before it, so I’m really excited to get racing again.”

As for his objectives on his return to racing, he sets no objective other than to successfully reintegrate himself back into the swing of things in the peloton.

“I don’t have any specific goals other than getting back in race shape. If I get the opportunity, I’ll try and go for a stage win, and you never know, but mainly I’ll be just testing my form.”

“There are four fairly flat stages to kick things off, which should all end in bunch sprints, and then we have two tough mountain stages followed by a time trial to round things off. There’s a bit of everything thrown in there, and although it’s open at first, those last three days should make for a selective GC.”

Since he recovered from his injury, Boasson Hagen has been able to train, but he did not make the Tour de France this year, not that he is too disappointed about that:

“(I didn’t miss it) Not too much, to be honest. I watched a few of the mountains stages but I’ve been that focused on my recovery that I was often out on the bike when it was on.”

"It definitely felt a bit strange. Up to this year I’d ridden every one of them for Team Sky, and I would have loved to have been there again, but my injury didn’t allow that. It did feel good sitting at home watching on TV though, when they were in the mountains. A few of those stages looked horrible.”