Tokyo 2020: Primož Roglič 'had nothing to lose' on gold medal ride in Olympic time trial
The Slovenian star crashed out of the Tour de France four weeks ago
Primož Roglič said he came into this Tokyo 2020 Olympics time trial with 'nothing to lose' after he stormed to victory, beating his closest rivals by over a minute.
The Slovenian two-time Grand Tour winner has had a tough few weeks after crashing out of his main objective of the Tour de France in the first week, before riding the Olympic road race where he finished 28th.
He then turned his attention to the time trial as the sole representative for his country. He put in a scintillating ride beating Jumbo-Visma team-mate, Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) by just over a minute, with Ineos Grenadiers rider Rohan Dennis (Australia) taking the bronze.
>>> Primož Roglič claims redemption with gold medal in Tokyo 2020 Olympic time trial
Speaking to Eurosport after the race, Roglič said: "It’s beautiful. This thing [medal] is quite heavy actually. But for me it's just incredibly nice after all the hard things that happened recently to me and all the hard work that we put in from my side, from the family side, from the people all around me that today I managed to win the gold medal and be Olympic champion."
He added: "It’s super hard. Especially when you know things are not going the way that you would like to. In the end I worked hard and I always try to keep believing. That's me, it's Primož. Everything is always possible every day and I just went out and I had nothing to lose.
"I just went all out from kilometre zero and fought for every kilometres and managed to come to the finish. That was my job. And I did it. I did it well. And then the time it was enough for the gold medal. So I'm super super pleased with that."
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Roglič missed out on the overall win at the Tour in 2020 where he was beaten in the time trial of the penultimate stage of the race by fellow countryman, Tadej Pogačar. He then suffered the pain of not finishing this year, but upon being asked whether an Olympic gold was the same as the Tour he shrugged it off.
"You know in cycling is just stupid to compare all these things, where everything is super hard to win. Even your home race behind your house. But every achievement is special. This one I think for sure is super special and I'm really happy."
It is not known whether Roglič will look to retain his Vuelta a España title for a third season in a row as of yet.
The road cycling events in the Tokyo 2020 Games are now finished with the track events in the velodrome getting underway on Monday, August 2.
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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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