Competing at the Vuelta a España is something of an experiment for Team Sky's Michal Kwiatkowski. The Polish rider has been racing nearly non-stop this season with an end goal of securing a second world title in Innsbruck in September. The question is: will the 21 days of racing in Spain put him into a state of exhaustion or will he come out the other end in winning form ahead of the UCI Road World Championships?
Kwiatkowski arrived in Malaga on Wednesday, several days ahead of the opening time trial that kicks off the Vuelta on August 25. After recently winning the overall title at the Tour de Pologne, he spent time in France at a training camp – partly for the training and partly to avoid the realities of being a popular sports figure back home in Poland.
"I could recover a bit more at the camp," Kwiatkowski told Cyclingnews in a phone interview. "I'm looking forward to starting the Vuelta.
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"It's a new thing for me to race for so long, and I'm still finding good shape. So far, I've felt great, even in training after Poland. You can't really predict how your body is going to react or respond to another 21 days of racing, though."
It's even harder to predict how Kwiatkowski will respond to the Vuelta after having already raced at the Tour de France in July where he helped his teammates Geraint Thomas win the overall title and Chris Froome finish on the podium in third.
Before that, he raced the Critérium du Dauphiné, where he won the opening prologue, helped win the team time trial, and went on to support Thomas in winning the overall title. Even further back, he started his season in February at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and then won the overall titles at the Volta ao Algarve and Tirreno-Adriatico.
Peter Sagan, the Worlds and the rainbow jersey
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via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/kwiatkowski-the-vuelta-worlds-experiment
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