Cyclist Tom Dumoulin looks set to miss the Vuelta d’España as well as the Tour de France after his Sunweb team said he was taking longer than expected to recover from a knee injury.

Dumoulin had to abandon the Giro d’Italia, the third of the major European tour races, in May after hurting his left knee in a fall on the fourth day. He had been one of the pre-race favourites for the Tour after finishing second last year, but was forced to pull out two weeks before the race began.

A spokesman for the Sunweb team said the 28-year-old Limburger was facing a race against time to be fit for the start of the Vuelta on August 28. ‘Tom is training, but it’s certainly not intensive training.’

Team doctor Anko Boelens said Dumoulin had damaged bones, ligaments and tendons in the knee in the heavy fall in Italy and needed to recover fully before he could race again.

‘We are following his recovery closely with MRI scans so that we can give Tom the optimum combination of rest, training and treatment,’ said Boelens. ‘At the moment it’s the tendon in particular that is restricting our options.’