In my eyes that either means JV is incompetent to let one of their two most important riders start with an injury, or just a lie.
Do you seriously believe most of the peloton is riding 100% healthy? Didn't you among other watch the mummy series? The (harsh) reality is most of the time and most of the riders on this level have some health issues they need to ignore. Otherwise there would just be no (meaningful) peloton.