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.
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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