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."
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.
