Groupama-FDJ leader Thibaut Pinot will head to the Vuelta a España having fully recovered from the pneumonia he suffered at May`s Giro d`Italia, which forced him to abandon the race after stage 20, and then miss the Tour de France. The Frenchman recently returned to racing at the Tour de Pologne - where he finished third overall, and second to Simon Yates on the final stage - and will ride the Vuelta having rediscovered his climbing legs in Poland. `The Vuelta`s quite different to the Giro or the Tour, but it`s still a Grand Tour. There`s just less stress,` Pinot said on the Groupama-FDJ website.ADVERTISEMENT `Starting in southern Spain, I`m ready for it to be very hot, but that`s something I`ve been working on.` Since the Tour de Pologne, Pinot has been training at altitude, basing himself at the ski resort of Tignes, and using late summer in the French Alps to prepare for the Vuelta. `I was happy to do the Tour de Pologne, which is the ideal preparation race for the Vuelta,` Pinot said. `I`ve got an opportunity to do the Vuelta with the kind of shape I wouldn`t normally have at this time of year, and I`m going to use the race to get back into form for the rest of the season. I don`t want to finish burned out in Madrid.`
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