They were colleagues until four months ago and now they are rivals. One was the other’s squire. They gave up stage victories like in the 2022 Dauphiné. And they worked together to cause Pogacar’s collapse in the 2022 Tour, the first of Vingegaard’s two. At Jumbo, the Dane grew up taking advantage of Roglic’s knowledge. But they were two ambitious cyclists and they couldn’t share the lead.
The Slovenian, winner of three Vuelta and a Giro, needed, at 34 years old, a team for him, a team that would allow him to lead the Tour de France. He couldn’t wait any longer. And he went to Bora this winter in search of his great opportunity to fight with guarantees to win the only major one he is missing. Roglic debuted his record with his new green jersey. The last 75 were with the yellow structure, first LottoNL, then Jumbo, now Visma.
Primoz Roglic won the initial time trial in Itzulia, which ended and ended in Irun. In those 10 km, the current Olympic champion of the specialty took a pinch out of his former colleague. Roglic put 15 seconds on Vingegaard, for whom the bulky helmet that Visma has released this year is not bringing him any luck. He did not win the Tirreno time trial and could only be fifth in the Basque Country.
And it could have been longer. Because Roglic made a mistake on the last straight, he turned right and went through the detour of motorcycles and cars, instead of taking the curve to the left to cross the finish line. There were a dozen seconds left that will be seen if they are decisive in the end in the last stage in Eibar. “Since the recognition of the stage, I have always turned towards that side. I didn’t do it well,” confessed the winner.
Remco Evenepoel also had a rocky start. The Belgian from Soudal, who was better than Roglic in Paris-Nice, crashed in the first corners through the streets of Irún. That took its toll on him because at the finish line, although he managed to overtake Sepp Kuss who had started a minute earlier, he was 11s worse than the Slovenian.
The one closest to the leader was Jay Vine (UAE), 7 seconds away. The Australian, in principle, has to work for the Alicante-born Juan Ayuso, who was sixth, only one second worse than Vingegaard. The Emirates, despite the absence of Pogacar, have brought a great team to the Basque Country. You only need to look at the classification, where there are four UAE cyclists among the top 15: the aforementioned Vine and Ayuso plus McNulty and the Mexican Del Toro.
