ROGLIC. Officially, Primoz Roglic is the leader of the Jumbo Visma to dethrone Tadej Pogacar. But with a start in Denmark, eyes are on a certain Jonas Vingegaard.
A curse to stop. On this Tour de France 2022, Primoz Roglic hopes to finally raise his arms on the Champs Elysées as the winner. After the loss of his yellow jersey during the last stage in 2020 and his retirement in 2021 due to injury, the Slovenian is considered the main opponent of his young compatriot Tadej Pogacar. But in the event of a poor performance or faced with the sparkling form of his young teammate Jonas Vingegaard, acclaimed as a rock star during the team presentation in Copenhagen, will Primoz Roglic become a luxury teammate?
When asked, Primoz Roglic explains that the victory against Pogacar will only be as a team. “We have many individual qualities. Together, we must do our best. Yes, we believe we can beat him as a team. We make each other stronger ((about Jonas Vingegaard editor’s note). Jonas is a very good rider. But that also goes for the others, who are individually very strong. With Jonas, I have a good relationship outside of the bike . We are very good friends”.
Primoz Roglic was born on October 29, 1989 in Trbovlje in Yugoslavia, a city located today in Slovenia. Son of a worker father and a mother, assistant in a dental office, the Slovenian first distinguished himself in ski jumping, a discipline he began at eight years old before becoming one of the best world runners at present. He competed in numerous competitions in ski jumping including the Junior World Championships where he won the silver medal in 2006 with the Slovenian team. He stopped his ski jumping career in 2011 and decided to devote himself fully to cycling.
After a very convincing 2012 season on the amateur circuit, Primoz Roglic signed for the Adria Mobil team. After revealing himself during his early years, he signed in 2016 with the World Tour team Lootto NL-Jumbo, a formation with which he achieved great performances from his debut on the Tour of Italy before winning the following year. his first stage race on the professional circuit with the Tour of the Algarve in 2017. A formidable climber, the talent of Primoz Roglic no longer needs to be demonstrated where he is one of the best riders in the peloton with Tadej Pogacar, Richard Carapaz, or Julian Alaphilippe, Remco Evenepoel and Wout Van Aert.
Primoz Roglic’s cupboard of trophies and jerseys is full: Slovenian time trial champion (2016), World Time Trial Championship silver medalist (2017), Tour of Algarve (2017), Tour of the Basque Country (2018 and 2021), Tour of the United Arab Emirates (2019), Tirreno-Adriatico (2019), Tour of Romandie (2018 and 2019), Vuelta (2019, 2020 and 2021), champion of Slovenia on the road (2020), Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2020), Olympic time trial champion (2021) and Paris-Nice.
Superstar of the peloton, Primoz Roglic is one of the highest paid riders on the circuit. The Slovenian receives 2.9 million euros per season. He is linked to the Jumbo-Visma formation until 2023.
Since his move to the professionals in 2013, Primoz Roglic has known three teams: Adria Mobil (2013-2015), Lotto NL-Jumbo (2016-2018) and Jumbo-Visma since 2019. His main partners in the Dutch formation are Wout Van Aert, Tom Dumoulin, Jonas Vingegaard or Christophe Laporte.
If he has never won the Tour of Italy or the Giro, Primoz Roglic is the triple title holder on the Vuelta after winning the general classification of the Tour of Spain in 2019, 2020 and 2021. He is the first Slovenian to have won a grand tour. He participated in the Giro twice (in 2016 and 2019) and 3 times in the Tour of Spain where he won each time he participated.
If he has already participated in four Tour de France, Primoz Roglic has never managed to win the Grande Boucle. The Slovenian did not come far from finishing with the yellow jersey on the Champs-Elysées in 2020 but he was robbed of the leading position by his compatriot Tadej Pogacar during the penultimate stage.
If he did not win the Amstel Golden Race 2021, Primoz Roglic’s performance caused controversy. During the final climb leading to the finish, the Slovenian finds himself forced to change bikes due to a mechanical problem. By changing the frame, we can see on the video that the crank continues to turn, which creates a controversy. In the video, we see the runner of the Jumbo-Visma formation press the end of his hanger.
Since 2021, Primoz Roglic has been married to Lora Klinc, a famous Slovenian writer who also manages some aspects of her husband’s career. They also had a son named Lev.
