Six months after he had to abandon the Tour de France with what emerged as a serious case of thrombophlebitis – varicose veins – Enric Mas (Movistar) is finally back racing again this week, and on home soil, too.
The multiple-time Vuelta a España podium finisher is set to make Thursday's team time trial in the Challenge Mallorca, just a stone's throw away from his home in Artá, his first race of 2026, and his first since last July.
Mas, 30, fell heavily on the Mur de Bretagne stage of the Tour de France. Although he could continue in the race, subsequent tests detected thrombophlebitis in his left leg. He subsequently abandoned the Tour during the third week in the Alps.
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Since then Mas has not raced, missing the Vuelta a España, his home race in which he has finished four times on the podium, most recently third last year, for the first time since 2019.
Speaking during the Vuelta a España, Mas said it was not clear when he would be able to return to racing. "I don't know when I'll compete again, and that's hard," he said at the time.
But finally one of Spain's top Grand Tour racers of the last seven years has managed to be back on track early enough in the 2026 season to take part, albeit briefly, in the Challenge Mallorca, his home event – and then head to a full program for 2026.
In a lengthy interview with AS this week, Mas confirmed that after seven consecutive participations in the Tour de France, he'll be making his debut in the Giro d'Italia, in May, with the Volta a Catalunya in March is the first race where he expects to be in top condition. He'll then miss the Tour, but will be back for the Vuelta a España in August.
"It's a new challenge for me, I'm very keen to do it," Mas said regarding the Giro. "I've been following the same calendar for years and I wanted a new kind of motivation."
After one day in the Challenge Mallorca in the TTT and in a very similar program to Jonas Vingegaard, also doing his first Giro, "I'll then go on to the UAE Tour, after which I'll be at altitude, followed by the Volta and the Giro. We had talked about racing the Vuelta a Andalucia [in late February] but they told me it wasn't tough enough for a rider like me.
"I want to do good races for me from the start of the year so I'll be feeling confident for the Giro."
First, though, comes the TTT in Mallorca and his return to racing. Mas confirmed that he was feeling "odd, as I have been been for some days, but very keen to start again."
"It's been a long time since July, and although I was in team training camps, now I finally can feel I'm coming back.
"It wasn't easy while I was recovering from the injury," he told AS, "but after that, it got more straightforward, better than I expected. That said, I hope I won't go through it all again."
The operation on his leg had to wait until mid-October and Mas said while it was straightforward, "but you never know. I knew it would take time, though, and fortunately it's gone well."
However, he was realistic about his options in the Trofeo Ses Salines team time trial, a 24-kilometre effort in south Mallorca on mostly undulating, if technical, rural roads with just one short climb towards the end as the biggest obstacle.
"I'm doing it because it's a very short effort, just 25 minutes and to tell you the truth, I don't know if I'll manage to finish it with the rest of the team.
"What I've done in the last few months is, in inverted commas, train in what was my comfort zone for the process of recovery for the injury."
His goal for the season, in any case, is simple and complicated at the same time.
"To get through the year, because last year that wasn't possible, and now i see it all very differently. But what I'd like to do is be on the podium of a Grand Tour again. That's what I'd like the most."
