Vrecer - I'm still on track for Giro d'Italia

It's hardly been the start to his Euskaltel career Robert Vrecer would have wanted. The Slovenian's bow in the orange jersey was cut painfully short by a collarbone fracture in February, and he failed to finish his comeback race - a brutally hard edition of Tirreno-Adriatico - when the gruppetto of which he was a part decided to pull out with some 50 kilometres to ride on the penultimate day.

Still, the 32-year-old is in high spirits. The national time trial champion's main goal this season is the year's first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia in May. And, according to the man himself, his Italian spring adventure is not in jeopardy despite getting 2013 off to a rocky start.

"I fell and broke my collarbone on Mallorca. Since then I've focused on my goal, the Giro d'Italia, and I've done everything in my power to stay fit", he told Velofutur. "Eventually I was able to ride Tirreno-Adriatico and thus stay on schedule. Obviously I wasn't in the shape I had wanted to be, but the racing days helped me improve in that regard.

"There's still plenty of time left before the Giro kick-off to train. I might not have gotten off to the best of starts, but I'll make it to the Giro", he concluded.

In order to stay on an upward trajectory form-wise, Vrecer will on Thursday line up in Italian one-day race GP Nobili Rubinetterie before taking on the mighty Milan-San Remo on Sunday. The Slovenian finished a noteworthy second to Danilo Di Luca at the GP Nobili last year, and will this time around line up as part of an eight-man Euskaltel team.

Euskaltel for GP Nobili Rubinetterie:
Egoi Martínez, Mikel Landa, Jorge Azanza, Garikoitz Bravo, Ricardo García, Miguel Mínguez, Ioannis Tamouridis and Robert Vrecer.