During the first rest day press conference, Chris Froome talked about his chance to win the Vuelta a Espana. The Sky rider is still confident and he hopes to shine in the third week.
"I'd love to win the Vuelta, it's a beautiful race, it's a great part of the racing calendar, and after winning the Tour it's my next biggest priority," Froome to ldCyclingnews. "It's always been a little bit of an afterthought [compared to the Tour], but it's the race that I first showed my potential as a GC rider, and it would mean a lot to me if I could win it one day."
Chris Froome battled to a third place on stage 10 of the Vuelta a Espana. In the overall classification, the British rider is third, 58 seconds behind Colombian Nairo Quintana (Movistar).
Froome had no time to prepare the Spanish three-week race. Indeed, with the Olympics, he could not make a lot of specific training before the start. "We don't do altitude camps, especially with the Olympics in the middle there wasn't any time to reset and start rebuilding towards the Vuelta. That's why I feel as if I'm building into the race and hopefully I will get back to my best for the last week."
With the individual time trail, Froome has a great chance to take back time.
"I've no idea. Quintana has been strong in time trials earlier this year, so has Valverde. I'm going to have the goal of getting to the time trial in the best place possible and give it everything I got", he explained. "I didn't see him much yesterday; he was too far up the road. But I've got a lot of respect for him as a rider and as a rival, he's definitely lifted himself after the Tour. He had a lot of downtime; he didn't do the Olympics, he went back to Colombia trained up at altitude, he's come here ready."
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