Paris (AFP)

Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) explained on Thursday that he wanted, on the occasion of the Vuelta which begins on Saturday, "to enter the closed circle of riders who have won a stage on the three big Tours", after his victories on the Giro and the tour of France.

Head of poster of Groupama-FDJ, Démare will live, at the age of 29, his first Tour of Spain, from Saturday.

"After 10 years, being able to discover a new race, it's really nice!", Declared the native of Beauvais Thursday at a press conference.

“This year, there are a lot more opportunities for sprinters” on the Tour of Spain, he noted.

In the absence of Thibault Pinot and David Gaudu, he will be the leader of his team, which will be focused on stage wins rather than the general classification.

On this occasion, the sprinter will be able to count on his usual "train", made up of the Dutchman Ramon Sinkeldam and the Italian Jacopo Guarnieri.

Démare will start this Vuelta with a vengeful spirit, after a disappointing Tour de France, during which he was eliminated in the 9th stage, arriving late.

"The Tour was very difficult to digest, it took me a long time to get over it, luckily my family cocoon was really there," said Démare.

"I needed mental freshness and desire to come back. It also made me feel good that the Big Loop stopped. I had a kind of disgust so I didn't watch the end of the Tour. . "

After a month without competition, Démare intends to "complete the time trial [of the 1st stage] to [get] unblocked", before thinking about the other stages promised to the sprinters.

If the leader of Groupama-FDJ knows that he has a good card to play in the absence of other top names like Caleb Ewan or Mark Cavendish, he also notes that the lack of sprinters could be a disservice to him.

"I'm going rather from the point of view where it's difficult to control a race alone, so the more sprinters we have the more the race is controlled for the big sprints. We could see it on the Tour, at the end it was difficult to + padlock +. I prefer, for the beauty of victory, a large plateau. Now you have to go and get the victory ... "

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