Primož Roglič says he didn't have the power he needed to hold off Tadej Pogačar on the penultimate time trial stage of the 2020 Tour de France, losing the yellow jersey at the final hurdle.
"I just obviously didn't push enough, it was like that," Roglič said after the stage.
"I was just more and more without the power that I obviously needed, I was really just giving everything to the end."
Roglič said that despite the result, he can still be happy with his second place and that he and his Jumbo-Visma team should now try and focus on the positives from the French Grand Tour.
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"We will see," Roglič replied to how he will bounce back from this. "First of all, still I am at the end [of the race] and I can be happy with the result and the racing we showed here, let's take positive things out of it."
Roglič arrived at the press room for his post-race press conference just as Tadej Pogačar was explaining how he had had a better day and Roglič must have been off form.
While the elder of the two Slovenians won't be on the top step of the podium tomorrow, he handled the autopsy of his time trial with the grace of a true champion.
"It’s true I didn't have the best day, today he was a lot better huh," Roglič said in his unique, matter of fact manner. "He was in a different world to me, he really deserved his win, congrats.
"For me, I gave everything I had, that was all. For sure I'm disappointed with the result but on the other hand I can be proud of my second place."
The Jumbo-Visma rider says during his effort he wasn't thinking about the time he was losing, just focusing all his efforts on riding as quickly as he possibly could.
"I didn't really want to think [about the time] like that, I was just fighting with every metre of the course until the finish line," Roglič explained. "I never had those thoughts in my head, I just tried to give 110 per cent, that’s all I did."
Roglič couldn't elaborate too much on what exactly went wrong, apart from that he lacked the requisite power to match Pogačar. He says beforehand he had allowed himself to dream a little that he would be taking the yellow jersey to Paris, giving the impression he hadn't expected to be beaten so resolutely by his countryman.
"I did dream a little before, and of course it’s bad when you hear the intermediate times that you are going away, losing and losing, but I was hoping he would have some hard moments, I was just pushing myself over the whole parcours."
Roglič says that at some point he and Jumbo-Visma will study what went wrong, but that time is not now.
"We need to do a big analysis, about everything, but for the moment I don't have a clear mind. It’s hard to think clearly," he said.
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