It’s been the intriguing subplot of the Tour de France so far: is Primož Roglič even bothered about doing well?
Previously such an unthinkable proposition – this is, after all, a fierce competitor who has won five Grand Tours and almost 100 races – Roglič began the race by delivering an oddly humorous and blasé press conference in which he laughed his way through and stated that “I don’t really care much” when asked if this could finally be the Tour in which he buries years of heartache. The message he was trying to project was that he doesn’t need the Tour to define him.
And he absolutely doesn't, but most assumed his laissez-faire attitude was just an act, a ploy to detract attention from him. Yet that isn't the case: his indifferent attitude continued when he lost 39 seconds on day one due to crosswinds and he stated once more that he wasn't bothered. Three days later, when he finished 32 seconds adrift to winner Tadej Pogačar on stage four, he once again trotted out the same line: “Like I always say, I always want to win, but in this case I don’t care about the time gaps,” he said.
We’re used to the Slovenian reciting the same few lines over and over again, and at least this one is more entertaining than his usual chat of taking it day by day, you know, and needing good legs eh, but his mannerisms and his public performances – both vocally and on the bike, where he is now 2:30 off Pogačar in the GC after only five stages – have been both unexpected and curious.
Concerning, too? The question people are now asking is how Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, the team that paid several millions of euros just 18 months ago to bring him on board, are taking his comments. “If he wouldn’t care he wouldn’t do a perfect warmup, a perfect food plan, a perfect sleep pattern, and on a final like yesterday [stage four] you wouldn’t take such a high risk that you have to take the lead in the front, so he does care of course,” the team’s lead sports director Rolf Aldag told Cycling Weekly.
“I think what he tries to say is – and it's very clear – is that he’s achieved a lot in his career, he has a family, he is healthy, and he’s not going to live or die because of the Tour de France. I do think in that sense he does not care, but he is trying his best, that is very obvious. If you do not care, you do not spend three weeks on altitude at 2,500m and suffer through all the heat and cold training sessions.”
There is a justifiable explanation behind Roglič’s apparent apathy: just over six weeks prior, he abandoned the Giro d’Italia after four crashes and was playing catch-up to be fit for the Tour. Just getting here, he claimed, took a lot of energy.
“It was quite tough if I’m honest to come here and it’s been a tough start,” he said after stage four. “If I would be flying I would be with one leg there, but I am suffering a lot these days to get through.”
According to Aldag, both Roglič and his young teammate Florian Lipowitz are performing to pre-race expectations, and they aren’t pressing the panic button. “We set a maximum deficit that we could adjust, and we are well inside that,” the veteran German DS said.
“We’re 2:30 [behind], and if after the next four next stages we’re at the same time then I think everything is still possible. Just remember that last year second was six minutes plus [to winner Pogačar], third nine minutes plus, and the fourth was 19 mins [adrift].
“So talking 2:30, getting into the big climbs healthy and fit, not mentally or physically exhausted, then you see what the outcome will be. I just refuse to draw any conclusions or make any predictions before we have climbed the first big climb.”
A podium finish is Red Bull’s big objective, but at what point do they change tact? “If a podium isn’t realistic we should switch, but until now it is, and I think we said clearly we target a podium in the Tour de France and that remains our goal for now,” Aldag continued. “If we have to adjust it, then we adjust it, but right now we still see good opportunities and possibilities.”
Should Roglič give up on GC, is he, in his current condition, even physically capable of winning stages? “I would never push away a stage win, but it’s not easy,” the four-time Vuelta a España winner said. “First of all you really need to have the legs. If I do have them I’d definitely go for it.”
More to the point, does he even care about trying to win stages? “I put everything out on the road day after day and we see what that means at the end,” he stated.
This is the new Primož Roglič: liberated, free, loose, nonchalant, incredibly blasé. Even Aldag has to laugh at his star rider. “He is really fun!”
