Primož Roglič will attempt to defend his Vuelta a España title as team is confirmed
The Slovenian has won the Spanish Grand Tour two years in a row
Primož Roglič has been confirmed to be riding the 2021 Vuelta a España by his Jumbo-Visma team.
The Slovenian is coming into the race as the double defending champion after winning both the 2019 and 2020 races. He also looks to be carrying good form after taking the gold medal in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games time trial ahead of team-mate Tom Dumoulin and Rohan Dennis (Ineos Grenadiers).
He will have some very strong support too with the likes of Grand Tour stage winners Sepp Kuss and Steven Kruijswijk as well as Sam Oomen, Nathan Van Hooydonck, Koen Bouwman, Robert Gesink and Lennard Hofstede.
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Roglič comes into the Vuelta after another disappointing Tour de France, but in a different way to 2020 where he lost yellow on the final day of GC racing. 2021 saw Roglič crashing hard on stage three of the race before abandoning on stage nine before the first rest day.
He will be hoping to put that behind him once again and go for a third red jersey. He would be the first rider to do this since Roberto Herras from 2003 to 2005 with Tony Rominger being the only other rider to achieve it between 1992 and 1994.
But Roglič hasn't been as dominant as he was in 2020. He missed out on Paris-Nice due to a crash on the final stage handing the title to defending champion Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe) as Roglič was unable to catch up again.
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After that, he went on to control the Tour of the Basque Country thanks to his main rival, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) having to look after Brandon McNulty.
It was then a mixed bag in the Ardennes Classics, a 69th place at the Amstel Gold Race led into a second in La Flèche Wallonne but then he was unable to defend his title with a 13th at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
He then went on a very long break from racing before starting the Tour which, as previously mentioned, went very wrong in the first week. Jumbo-Visma did resurrect the race with second overall thanks to Jonas Vingegaard and four stage wins by Wout van Aert and Kuss.
Roglič won't be the stand-alone favourite either with 2021 Giro d'Italia winner Egan Bernal, Adam Yates, Richard Carapaz (all Ineos Grenadiers), Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana-Premier Tech), Mikel Landa (Bahrain-Victorious) and many others to battle against.
The Vuelta a España begins on August 14 in Burgos before winding around the 21 stages and finishing in Santiago de Compostela on September 5.
Tim Bonville-Ginn is a freelance writer who has worked with Cycling Weekly since 2020 and has also written for many of the biggest publications in cycling media including Cyclingnews, Rouleur, Cyclist and Velo.