Despite his victory in the Tour of Catalonia, the first part of the season has not been up to the expectations of Joaquim Rodriguez. In fact, his falls at the Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche Wallonne ruined his Ardennes Classics campaign, and then a further fall forced him to abandon the Giro. While he mounted on the third step of the podium of the Tour de France last year, Purito returns this year with the idea of preparing for the Vuelta.

He explained during the presentation of Katusha: "I do not know exactly where I am but I know I'm not 100% as I’ve miss days of racing. With a little luck, I'll find my rhythm over the days." 

Rodriguez, who missed last Sunday's national championship, will not aim at the overall standings but will focus on the steps: "There is a lot of stages that I like, especially from the second week, when the course will harden. It's a bit of a strange situation but I can not do anything about it one thing is certain: I will not take too many risks in the first week, especially on the cobbles, I’ve crashed enough."

With a significant delay before the second weekend of racing, the favorite could leave a nice flexibility. For the general classification, the Katusha team can build on Simon Spilak’s fourth in the Tour of the Basque Country and second in the Tour de Romandie, when the Slovenian leads them for three weeks along with Russian Yuri Trofimov.