Roglic fit and ready for Tour de France as rescheduled event given green light to start

Paris, August 28: Tour de France favourite Primoz Roglic insists he is "feeling fine" ahead of the rescheduled event, which has been given the green light to begin on Saturday.

Roglic had been in supreme form prior to a heavy fall at the Criterium du Dauphine on August 15 that left his participation in cycling's biggest event hanging in the balance.

However, the Vuelta champion - who has ex-Giro d'Italia winner Tom Dumoulin in support on the Jumbo-Visma team - has made a full recovery and will rival last year's winner Egan Bernal for the yellow jersey

"I feel fine. I'm here at the Tour start now, so that's good news," the Jumbo-Visma rider said at a news conference on Thursday.

"It's been a different plan - we didn't expect this complicated start with the crash and it took some time to restart and do the things I wanted to but in the last days I managed it."

The event is going ahead nearly two months later than usual owing to the coronavirus pandemic.

It starts in Nice this weekend before crisscrossing France over the next few weeks.

Doubts had been raised over whether the Tour will even start, never mind make it all the way to Paris on September 20, with COVID-19 continuing to spread across the country.

But, speaking on Thursday, France's Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer insisted the competition is "a sign that we can continue to live, and the resilience of our society."

That could yet change, though, with the Lotto-Soudal team announcing two days before the start date that two of their support staff had tested "non-negative" for coronavirus.

And Dumoulin, who was runner-up in his last Tour appearance, admits it is a case of taking the race on a day-by-day basis.

"At the moment it doesn't look good with some of the numbers around Nice and France but at the moment we are just in our own bubble," the Dutchman said.

"We don't have a strategic plan to be in the lead in case the race stops after one and a half weeks.

"The winner after one and a half weeks isn't the real winner of the Tour de France. That's not a Tour de France, that's a 10-day race.

"It's a completely different race. We're preparing for a Grand Tour and we want to win the Tour de France."

This year's Tour could be the most open in a long time, with Team INEOS rider Bernal considered by some the man to beat after becoming the youngest winner of the yellow jersey in over a century when he triumphed last year.

Former winners Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas have been left behind but Bernal looks in good stead, even if he pulled out of the Dauphine early because of a back issue.

Elsewhere, Thibaut Pinot of Team Groupama is France's best hope of a first winner in 34 years and is determined to make the most of a favourable route.

"Last year was a huge disappointment but I will get over it," he said of the thigh injury that curtailed his 2019 Tour.

"I've realised that I could aim extremely high. That was the worst disappointment of my career.

"I had the best form I've ever had in my career. To lose all of that in an instant was too much to bear."