Start of the season at Ruta Del Sol

Roman will kick off the season at the 62nd edition of the Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol, which takes place between Wednesday and Sunday. He has never ridden this stage race before and we will share the captain role together with the Polish rider Majka.

“I have done a lot of practicing lately. I spent more than a month on the Canary Islands. At first, there were 8 of us, then 5 of us and finally, I stayed there on my own. I spent most of the time with my coach who was there with me for three weeks,” revealed Roman.

“I did a lot of work. Having seen the kilometres, hours and altitude I put in it can be comparable with a Grand Tour. I know that I am in good shape and I am really looking forward to racing. We will see how I will perform compared to the others but I believe that we will manage to get a good result,” said Roman.

Many big stars are to line up in Andalusia, including Valverde, van Garderen, S. Sánchez, Roche, Poels, Mollema or Kelderman. “The competition will be strong, even though many other important races around the world are on the menu,” added Roman.

He was happy about the role of two captains. “We tried it last year in Oman and both of us found it convenient. There are two tough stages with mountain top finishes and one time trial. It is going to be a great warm-up race before the Tirreno-Adriato, which is supposed to be the first highlight of the season.”

His race agenda for the first part of the season is as follows:

Ruta Del Sol

Strade Bianche

Tirreno-Adriatico

Milan-San Remo

Basque Tour

Amstel Gold Race

Fleche Wallone

Liege-Bastogne-Liege

High altitude camp

Tour of Switzerland

National Championships

Tour de France

Olympic Games