Richard Kalapas (Ineos Grenadiers) has high hopes of continuing his race lead at the 2020 Vuelta a España, where he will battle with rival Primos Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) and other top GC contenders.

Karapas currently holds a 10-second lead over Roglic, 32 seconds over Hugh Kersee (EF Pro Cycling), and 35 seconds over Dan Martin (Israel Startup Nation), with Enric Mas (Movistar) rounding out the top five by about 2 minutes.

In a declaration released by the team, Karapas said he can chill out about Tuesday's 33.7 km test and confirmed that he has been working on time trials in the off-season.

"I'm very calm. I know it's a very hard TT, but more than anything I've prepared for it and I plan to do very well," Karapas insisted.

The 2019 Giro d'Italia winner noted that there are quite a few races left after the Ezaro TT and that he and Roglic will not be alone in the battle for victory in the final cycling Grand Tour of the 2020 season. He speculated that Carty, who is currently third overall, could even be in contention for the win.

"The others [the top five] have a lot of Grand Tour experience, like Dan Martin, or are strong young guys like Karthy.

"But this time trial will show who really has a chance to win in Madrid.

In any case, only two riders have held the leader's jersey so far: Roglic, who won stage 7 after his victory in Alate, and again on stages 10 and 11, and Calapaz, who wore La Roja on all other stages.

The lead swapping between the two made the Vuelta much more attractive than simply having one rider dominate the race, Calapaz said.

"I knew that Roglic was the favorite to win, and he showed it. But then the opportunity came along and he took the jersey." I lost the jersey again at Suanesse (on stage 10), but I got it back again, which made the Vuelta more interesting.

For reference points in Tuesday's Grand Tour, Calapaz was never stronger than Roglic. However, in the time trial at Planche des Belle Filles and the most recent TT showdown, neither was in great form, albeit for different reasons.

Roglic was out of gas at this point, but he was in fifth place with a time of 1:56. Carapas reportedly slowed down in the first half of the climb and gave it his all on the climb in order to keep his mountain title. Incidentally, Kalapas was 81st in 7:53, well behind 54th-place Kershey in 6:56, 31st-place Dan Martin in 5:31, and 9th-place Mass in 2:45.

As for the 2019 Giro d'Italia TT, Roglic won the short Bologna opener with a 47-second advantage over both Calapas and Kersee, and in the much longer test in San Marino, he beat Kersee by 1:30 and Calapas by 1:55. Roglic was also out of form in the final 17 km TT, finishing 10th, 46 seconds ahead of Carapas.

However, it was Calapaz who won the Giro d'Italia outright. As important as the Ezaro TT was, as Carapas effectively said, this was only the first few pages as far as the early stages of the Vuelta were concerned.