A little more than two years after he won the opening stage of the 2015 Tour de France in Utrecht, Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing) has returned to the overall lead of another Grand Tour in the 2017 Vuelta a España´s first team time trial. South American climber Darwin Atapuma led the Vuelta for BMC Racing last year for four days, and BMC won the opening team time trial in the somewhat-controversial opening stage of the 2015 Vuelta as well, with Peter Velits taking the first red jersey of the race. But for Dennis, after his setback at the Giro d´Italia this May when injuries forced him to quit what was his big GC target of the season, leading the Vuelta a España from the get-go represents the strongest of returns to Grand Tour racing.ADVERTISEMENT The first Australian, too, to lead the Vuelta since Michael Matthews back in 2014, Dennis insisted that he is not fighting for the overall in the Vuelta a España as an initial goal, saying he is going for stage wins. But he qualified that a little by pointing out that if he is in a good position on GC, as he is now, he´s hardly going to step on the brakes. Describing his season objectives, he said, `It was always about the Giro for GC and the Vuelta is for stages. But in saying that, the first stage is in Andorra and I´m going good there, I´m not going to sit up. I´m going to fight for a stage win. But if it doesn´t work out, it doesn´t matter.` As for today´s stage, speaking before the win, the 27-year-old Australian said, `It was a hard course, very technical to start and we really had to tactically figure out if it was better to finish with nine or drop a few beforehand. It tested everything, it tested strength, technique, speed and handling.`
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