This Tour de France 2022 illustrates a bit of the story of the life of Slovenian Primoz Roglic (32 years old) made up of ups and downs. Favorite to the final victory on the Champs-Élysées, the Jumbo Visma rider crashed during the 5e stage towards Arenberg giving up all chances of final victory. This Sunday, July 17, finally, after a week in the service of Dane Jonas Vingegaard, yellow jersey of the Tour de France, the Slovenian has thrown in the towel and will not start the 15e stage in the direction of Carcassonne.
From ski jumping to cycling, the first bounce
Let’s go back to the beginning, Primoz Roglic was first a ski jumper before being a cyclist. Rising hope of Slovenian ski jumping, he won medals at the Junior Worlds in 2006 and 2007. he hits the ground head first. He recovers with a broken nose and a concussion. But the psychological trauma is stronger. He stopped his jumping career in 2011.
We have blocked the display of this content to respect your cookie choices.
By clicking on “Consult”, you accept the deposit of cookies by social network services such as Twitter.
–
–
–
In 2007, ski jumper Primoz Roglic was close to death. A fall that pushed him towards cycling.
Today, he wears the most prestigious of jerseys…#TDF2020pic.twitter.com/PdFNqqsfIw
— David Guénel (@davidguenel) September 6, 2020
“I started at 8 years old because it is a very popular discipline in Slovenia. I had a rather simple ambition: to become the best ski jumper in the world. Arrived at the age of 20, I had to face the facts: I was not part of the world’s gratin. So I tried to reach the heights in another way,” has already explained in the past Primoz Roglic to the Belgian daily La DH. First disappointment.
He then gets on his bike. A sport he practiced to prepare for his ski jumping seasons. First of all a very good time trial rider, he will turn to stage races two years after his arrival at Jumbo-Visma in 2016, noting his good recovery capacities in stage and climbing events. But as in ski jumping, his successes are above all built on failures revealing the steely mind available to the Slovenian.
Giro 2019, first setback
Favorite of the Giro 2019 after a start to the season where he won everything in his path (UAE Tour, Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour de Romandie). He won the inaugural time trial, wore the leader’s pink jersey for five days before handing it over to the Italian Valerio Conti. The Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz, final winner that year, reversed the general classification during the 14e stage in Courmayeur and especially Primoz Roglic will come down from the podium over the stages.
Above all, on this Giro, he was the victim of a stroke of fate the next day towards Como. He crashed in the end of the stage but lost precious seconds because his sporting director, Addy Engels, stopped to satisfy a natural need and was out of place in the line of cars behind the peloton. He finally finished on the third step of the podium but it remained a failure given his perfect start to the season. Not his most significant failure, but the first of many.
He will make up for it at the end of the exercise by crushing the first of his three Tour of Spain, 2’33” ahead of the Spaniard Alejandro Valverde and finishing world number one in the UCI ranking.
The Tour de France 2020, a significant failure
That of the Tour de France 2020 will remain stuck forever. He comes to the start of the time trial of the Planche Des Belles Filles, his favorite playground, with a good lead of 57 seconds over his Slovenian compatriot Tadej Pogacar. If the latter achieves an exceptional performance (he wins the stage with 1’21” ahead of my Dutchman Tom Dumoulin), Primoz Roglic still finishes 5e of the stage at 1’56” and lost his yellow jersey the day before arriving on the Champs-Élysées. Even if the image of an ill-fitting Primoz Roglic helmet on his head, visibly too big, his face flushed from the bad days and an unusually borrowed style remains etched in the heads of the followers, the Slovenian had not completely passed either. next to his time trial. But two months later, he won his second Vuelta.
The secret to his rebounds may lie in the approach to the competition. As he used to say everyday The Team in January 2021, after his disillusionment with the Board of Beautiful Girls. He is not obsessed with winning. “I want to be number 1 but in truth, what I like is the approach that surrounds it all. How do I reach my limits? It’s very harmful to only have victory as your objective: if you’re second, you’re finished, you can’t find the strength to start again. This prevents you from taking pleasure in the preparation. »
READ ALSO. “Primoz Roglic is no longer in denial”, underlines a mental trainer
Six months later, rebelotte. He leaves the Tour de France route from the 9e stage due to a fall during the 7e stage in the direction of Châteauroux. Wounded in his flesh, he does not even want to go to Japan to compete in the Olympic Games, yet one of the objectives of his season. He will finally decide to join the land of the rising sun, with good reason, since he will win gold in the timed event before easily winning his third Vuelta ahead of Spaniard Enric Mas with a lead of more than 4 minutes. Yet another rebound that shows all the character of a great champion that Primoz Roglic possesses.
–
Primoz Roglic has won the Vuelta three times (2019, 2020, 2021). EPA-EFE/Manuel Bruque © Photo: EPA/MAXPPP/Manuel Bruque
A fourth Vuelta in the viewfinder
We will not forget, either, son Paris-Nice 2021 where, wearing the yellow jersey on the last day, a fall caused him to lose the race in the sun. He makes it a point of honor to win, a year later, the general classification of the race.
We have blocked the display of this content to respect your cookie choices.
By clicking on “Consult”, you accept the deposit of cookies by social network services such as Twitter.
–
–
–
Just a quick chat in the middle of Stage 13 …@albertocontador: “Try to recover, yes? Little by little.”@rogla: “I try to, huh? Preparation for the Vuelta.”
Nothing like looking ahead ??#TdF2022 pic.twitter.com/Skwi8bLLtD
— Eurosport (@eurosport) July 15, 2022
After this new failure, Primoz Roglic will turn to the Vuelta which begins on August 19 where he will try to become the first rider to win the Tour of Spain four times consecutively. He also entrusted it to Alberto Contador on the motorcycle ofEurosport a few days ago : “I am preparing for the Vuelta now. » Primoz Roglic will therefore try to do what he knows how to do best: bounce back because he “(n)ever feel sorry for my fate” as he pointed out after his third victorious Vuelta.
–
