Having sacrificed his own ambitions for Primoš Roglic in the Tour de France, Tom Dumoulin is now committed to getting himself on the podium as the Vuelta a España gets underway Tuesday with 18 stages.

The Dutchman will race alongside the bulk of the Jumbo-Visma team, including Tour de France runner-up and last year's Vuelta champion Roglic.

"I still have some legs left and I want to get on the podium with a better leg than in the Tour. That's my ambition," he told Cycling News in a short call Monday afternoon.

Dumoulin was interviewed by Cycling News, of course, after the main press conference alongside Roglic. No doubt the two riders will be united, as they were at the Tour de France, and will work together to decide who has the best chance of winning the overall in Spain.

The two have a strong bond both on and off the bike, with Dumoulin providing crucial cover on the final climb of Liège-Bastogne-Liège before Roglic followed Julien Alaphilippe's attack.

"We have a really strong team again," Dumoulin said of Roglic, Robert Gesink, George Bennett, and Zep Kuss, who is getting better and better after winning a stage at last year's Vuelta.

"There are a few guys who have run the Tour de France, and we're going for the overall with Primosch, myself, or the best guys at the end of the year. It's a great position and I want to benefit from it," Dumoulin said.

"The first week is really tough, the hardest of the three weeks. It's strange to have the hardest week at the start of a Grand Tour, and we'll find out soon enough who's the best and who we're going for."

For Dumoulin, it has been a roller coaster year. He ended 2019 by voiding his contract with Sunweb and switching teams, but needed most of the offseason to regain fitness and form after a knee injury that ruined his 2019 campaign. He was not supposed to race before Lockdown due to his condition, but after more than a year away from competition, he has steadily improved.

It remains to be seen if he is at the same level as he was when he won the Giro in 2017 or finished second in both the Tour and Giro in 2018, but the 29-year-old is pleased with his track record of improvement.

"It was a tough period leading up to the Tour and before the Vuelta. But I'm very happy with where I was during that time.

"Before, I had a long period without racing. For the future, and maybe for this Vuelta, I want to improve that and then I can be very close to the podium. But we'll have to see if that can happen at this year's Vuelta or next season.

"It's been tough because it's also been a strange period with the whole season condensed into three months, but my overall feeling and physical feeling is still very good, so hopefully I can have another good run in the Vuelta in three weeks.