In early August, Tomas de Gendt (Lotto Soudal) usually takes a breather after the Tour de France and resets his motor for the Vuelta a España in the fall. This year, however, is different.

The veteran Belgian breakaway specialist, who took an impressive stage win at the Giro d'Italia in Naples this spring, has since missed the Tour de France and is now taking on the Tour de Pollogne.

For the 35-year-old, the race is a little-known road to fall preparation. In his 16 years as a professional, he has competed in 22 Grand Tours, including seven Vuelta a España, but only two Tour de Pollogne. And his July has been different from almost anything else in the past decade.

"It was the first time since the Tour de Suisse that I was competing after two weeks of rest and three weeks of high-altitude training camp," de Gendt told Cycling News at the start of the first stage of the Tour de Pollogne. [This race is a prelude to the Vuelta and a more important goal at the end of the season.

He has only competed in the Tour de Pollogne twice before, in 2020 and 2014, the former in a memorable race marred by a serious accident involving Fabio Jacobsen and the latter by rain and a crash.

That's no surprise for a hilly, punchy race that is traditionally settled by the smallest of margins.

"In the end, it came down to a matter of seconds. It's not the year [Remco] Evenpole won [in 2020], but it's usually by 10 or 15 seconds," de Gendt said.

"So we will be very nervous during the week, with gaps and splits. And crashes happen."

He added, "My Polish teammate [Kamil Malecki] said that the last month has been dry. So this week it will start to rain and it will be very slippery."

Indeed, there was rain during the middle of Saturday's stage and a big crash at the end, but fortunately not many injuries were reported. But crash or no crash, the second half of the season without the Tour will be a new chapter for de Gendt.

"I've been racing the Tour for the last seven years, so it's a completely different approach to the Vuelta. The Vuelta was always something I did as an afterthought because there weren't many other races that suited me, but now the Vuelta is my goal, like the Giro."

"So the approach is different and I don't know how my body will react to a training camp at altitude. I skipped the All-Japan Championships and I've never taken time off at this time of the year, so hopefully that will be a plus for me at the end of the season. I'm sure the two weeks off will help me to be fresher and less mentally fatigued."

"So I don't know what will happen. But I'm looking forward to seeing how I feel in the Vuelta and how my body reacts."

Reference is made to past results, with de Gendt's last Vuelta run as part of the three major Grand Tour "challenges" in 2019. Perhaps more relevant to this year, he won the mountains ranking there in 2018, his only class win in a Grand Tour, and a stage win in Asturias in 2017.

Lotto Soudal is immersed in the fight to remain in the World Tour and is currently running in 19th place, one place short of "redemption". De Gendt says that instead of being overly concerned with that within the team, "All we think about is winning races. If we win the race, we can take points away from the other teams. If the other teams start winning too, that's a problem."

But the team's "winning" is not the only thing that is important to the team.

He added, however, that he keeps a broader perspective on the whole issue.

"We are not trying to place three people inside the top 10 in each one-day race. Instead, we are trying to win the race with Caleb (Yuan), Arnaud (de Lier), or whoever it may be."

"I'm still trying to win races and we'll see if that's enough to stay on the World Tour. But we have to train and do our best in the races."