With the Tour de Pollogne over and the Vuelta a Burgos drawing to a close on Saturday, teams began finalizing their lineups for the upcoming Vuelta a España.

Primoš Roglic resumed training, and Tour de France winner Jumbo Visma will soon have to decide whether Roglic can lead the team for a fourth consecutive year and win a third consecutive Vuelta. But what about Bora-Hansgrohe, another team that won its first Grand Tour this year?

Following their victory at the Giro d'Italia, Bora-Hansgrohe will have Sergio Iguita on GC for the Vuelta, and while the exact mission is yet to be determined, it will almost certainly be Corsa Rosa winner Jai Hindley.

But what about sprinter Sam Bennett and the rest of the field? The Irish sprinter is slowly regaining his best form, but fears he could miss out on the Vuelta a España after failing to qualify for the Tour de France.

Alexandre Vlasov is sidelined with a back injury, but senior sport director Rolf Aldag told Cycling News that the team's Vuelta lineup is a puzzle with many pieces and many considerations.

The Vuelta, which saw the team win its first Grand Tour race much earlier than expected this May, could be a testing ground for the team's race strategy over the next three weeks, as well as a goal in and of itself.

Aldag has not yet ruled anyone out as, with the exception of Hida, Bora-Hansgrohe has multiple options in a variety of disciplines. These range from the points award jersey to the overall class. As for the selection of athletes, it is a matter of how much emphasis is placed on each goal.

"We have world-class riders in all disciplines, including Sam Bennett in the sprint. And of course there is GC. So the list is pretty long and there are a lot of options," Aldag explained to Cycling News.

"At the same time, we are in the transition to GC racing and our team manager, Ralf Denk, has made it very clear what we are aiming for. Winning a Grand Tour was a three-year project, but we achieved it in May. So we have the freedom of not having to chase what we have already achieved. It's a very luxurious situation."

"There is still a lot to learn, so it could be interesting to learn how to combine the sprinter teams [in the Vuelta] with the GC goals and what type of riders we need.

Beulah Hansgrohe's full GC aims at the Giro and Tour ruled out Bennett and other sprint options.

"Then why not try for GC to see what happens?" he rhetorically asked.

Further complicating this puzzle is that while the Vuelta has many mountain stages, it also has more flat stages than in recent years.

"This year there will be five, maybe six. So it makes sense to remember that and to watch," he suggested.

Asked directly if he would go for the red leader's jersey and the green points prize at the Vuelta, Ardagh jokingly replied: "With Jonas Vingegaard and Wout Van Aert's Jumbo-Visma showing double success.

"Of course that happened, but this July was exceptional. Wout Van Art's run was truly otherworldly. So "copying and pasting" from the Jumbo is definitely not something we can or want to do."

Aldag has personally experienced the battle for the green and yellow since the 1997 Telekom era, when Jan Ullrich won the overall and Erik Zabel took the points jersey.

According to Aldag, if a team wins the overall leader's jersey, a conflict arises between these two goals. The opposite occurs when the opportunity to lead the race arises.

"How many teams can afford to say, 'I want to win the sprint, so I'll wait if I have a chance at the jersey'?" Aldag asks.

"That makes it interesting to figure out what strategy to use and which riders to employ."

For Beulah Hansgrohe, another factor in the equation for this year's Vuelta a España is the opening team time trial, which is long by modern standards.

In these days when Grand Tour victories are often decided by relatively small margins, the time lost and time differences in this early time trial will be crucial in the final decider in Madrid on September 11.

"It's a long prologue, but it's very difficult to make up three minutes of time lost because things are very tight in GC right now.

"So the team time trial is a super stressful day for everyone, but I don't think it's the biggest problem in the Vuelta."

Priority number one, he says, is "keeping stress levels generally low in a race that is always super, super hot and has very long transfers."

"It's really simple things like handing out drinks so the riders don't panic on the bike and say, 'I need water, I need water, I need ice. Give them the proper structure. The most important thing is to keep stress levels as low as possible first."

It begins with an early decision on final team selection. Since Beulah Hansgrohe is racing in Burgos, Pollogne, and the Sazka Tour of the Czech Republic, the decision on the Vuelta 8 lineup will most likely be made after the Sazka Tour race on Sunday.

Several general rules apply to the selection procedure, Aldag said.

"People will understand why they are selected or not selected," he says. But it is also true, as he explains, that the sooner it is resolved, the better for everyone.

"So I will decide after the three races in Burgos, Pologne, and Sazuka."

After that, Beulah Hansgrohe will focus all her energy on achieving her goals in the Vuelta.