It appears he won't be fighting for GC in the Dauphiné: Team Jumbo-Visma | Tour de France casts its shadow in Criterium du… (teamjumbovisma.com)
I believe it when I see it.
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It appears he won't be fighting for GC in the Dauphiné: Team Jumbo-Visma | Tour de France casts its shadow in Criterium du… (teamjumbovisma.com)
I hope Primoz wins Dauphine, so that he can make peace with this race, after what 2020 happened.
If he wins Dauphine, and becomes 2nd at the Tour, it was still a very good season: victories in PN and Dauphine, 2nd at TdF.
Oh man, autumn and winter now are coming so quickly; so let‘s enjoy these next weeks, these next races…
By the end of the Tour, contracts for 2023 are already made…
(For the cyclocross guys and guys from the southern hemisphere: just be patient for another few weeks - your season is coming soon…)
I expect Roglic to try to pick up a Dauphine win if it's there for the taking. Mainly judging by the way he raced the Lombardia prep races in 2019 and 2021. And with this field, and this route, I don't think I remember Roglic being in a bad enough shape to not win this other than Itzulia which is purely down to injury.I don't think Roglic will give a damn about finishing second in the Tour. In fact if there's one rider who'll risk a certain podium spot with a long range attack (if the Tour seems to be slipping away at some point), it'll be Roglic.
Say for example he's 2 minutes behind Pog heading towards the final TT in the last week. He'll risk the podium to win the jackpot aka no risk no glory. If he fails, he fails. No big deal.
Likewise I don't expect him to care much about the Dauphiné either. This summer & autumn it's Tour de France > Vuelta number 4 > Lombardia in terms of objectives.
It appears he won't be fighting for GC in the Dauphiné: Team Jumbo-Visma | Tour de France casts its shadow in Criterium du… (teamjumbovisma.com)
I see no words that suggest he won't be fighting for the GC. Testing form is actually a strong statement suggesting that Primoz won't be invisible and I think he will put the hammer down on at least one stage (ITT), which could be enough to win the race.
I expect Roglic to try to pick up a Dauphine win if it's there for the taking. Mainly judging by the way he raced the Lombardia prep races in 2019 and 2021. And with this field, and this route, I don't think I remember Roglic being in a bad enough shape to not win this other than Itzulia which is purely down to injury.
After watching Roglič struggle in the closing days of grand tours, however, Indurain suggested the Jumbo-Visma start should consider putting all of his GC eggs into the Tour basket.
“I think he has to learn to measure himself if he wants to win a Tour de France,” Indurain said. “Roglič is going well, he really likes these types of races, and he is the favorite to win this week.”
He'd be best-advised to listen to BigMig. Until he's won that prize to his satisfaction he won't know exactly what it takes, with so much more pressure than the Vuelta or shorter SR. He seems really cool and collected but the Tour exposes rider weaknesses routinely and many racers are their own worst enemies. They don't know it until they overcommit too early but they certainly know afterward where the race ended for them. Or they should.I know. It's worded in a way which suggests winning the Dauphiné could be part of the ultimate goal which is the Tour de France, aka step one, basically. I simply concluded winning isn't the goal here because despite the vagueness of the comment I don't believe Grischa Niermann is particularly finicky or strategic with his words. I mean he's already said in another interview Vingego isn't riding GC, at all. I don't think he's playing mind games.
I agree. Also, in hindsight that injury still intrigues me.
Particularly the way in which it was eventually 'revealed' in Itzulia: Evenepoel attacked, Roglic looked like he was about to cover the move, then Jonas went & Rog sat down again. After that he just rode a casual tempo.
The entire episode could have also been handwaved as a tactical choice to let Jonas ride GC & frankly, people would have believed it with or without talk afterwards of a sore knee (or without the hilarious footage of Enric Mas squeezing his leg during the last stage).
I also mention this because of some interesting advice which Miguiel Indurain had for Roglic before Itzulia: Miguel Indurain says Primož Roglič needs to bet everything on Tour de France - VeloNews.com
It's also true that this same phenomenon of peaking too early & running out of gas was evident in Lombardia as well (he smashed Emilia & Milan-Turin, then faded on the Saturday).
So I honestly don't know what to expect in the Dauphiné nor do I think it'll say much about his chances in the Tour or form in 4 weeks time, unless he smashes it of course at which point it's business as usual.
I don't love the Tour de France obsession. If he fails, I don't hope he keeps chasing it until he starts going backwards.
Roglič himself told the press about it at the end of the race and apparently the team was not happy about it - either because they thought making an injured rider do a WT race would make them appear incompetent or because Roglič got the info out on his own without the team approval. I still don't know what they would say about the clear sub-par performance if the injury was not revealed by Primož himself.
That's something new... Source?
Yeah, if he doesn't succeed this time he needs to have a deep inner talk. His career has been spectacular to date and he has the skills to win other monumental races should he make that a season focus. The top 20 GT rider list is full of specialists that have ground themselves down a few times and Primoz should remember his career in later days for not being on that list at the expense of other cool races. He is a serious racer.I don't love the Tour de France obsession. If he fails, I don't hope he keeps chasing it until he starts going backwards.
That's something new... Source?
The NFL as an organization does so many things poorly or pathetically. But I do like that the league requires teams to post the injury status for every injured player, and report whether a player is “out,” “questionable,” or “probable” for a game. Of course they do this in their (owners) self-interest, it is probably related to gambling, and coaches still fudge a bit. But regardless of the intent, I think it serves the fans and players well. In cycling, if a team keeps a lid on news of a rider’s injury, the rider has to lie, and has to act as though a poor (injury-related) performance is because “the legs just weren’t there.” Sometimes we find out afterwards, which then can sound like excuse-making or sour grapes. Of course, teams do this if it gives a competitive advantage. But that is eliminated (for the most part) if ALL teams were required to report injury status leading up to a race, and get fined when they falsify that info.Slovenian RTV journalists who were on the site. The team gave out zero info to the press before, but Roglič just told the journalist and the team were "surprised he did so". They also mentioned Jumbo is always very reserved when it comes to giving any information to the press about the riders besides the racing part. They have very strict PR rules it seems. So it helps to have someone on the spot to fish out some details.
He had pain through the whole race and not a single JV article or tweet mentioned a single thing until Roglič talked about it.
But let us hope that is all in the past. The doctor that treated him is apparently very good at what he does and since that was basically 2 months ago during a "resting period" I doubt a couple of weeks of less intentisy riding harmed his preparation since he was back to 100% before they went to altitude.
IIRC @Libertine Seguros alone has had plenty of laughs on Zeeman for that Tour.I don't think any regulations can ever solve the root of (almost) all sport drama, aka sportsmen versus management & vice versa disputes.
There's a perfect symbiotic relationship in the best case scenario where both sides (in whatever discipline, but namely team sports) act with mutual best interests in mind. Problems happen when the management (for example) starts blaming its players (ala Jose Mourinho) or when the players (insert xyz underperforming star) blames management. Whether this is expressed publicly or privately, it's all the same, aka disunity.
Cycling is the most individual team sport out there. Merijn Zeeman (to name JV's TdF boss) can say or do whatever he wants, i.e. pick whichever riders in the team, tell them to say whatever he wants to the media & present whichever tactics in the team buss in the morning, but at the end of the day the Tour will always come down to Roglic having his legs on the day & being where it matters in the race.
Also, Zeeman might get job satisfaction after a good result but win or lose, Roglic himself will always get the glory when things go well whilst on the flipside he gets the sh*t shovelled in his face when he loses. That's the pressure, the risk & the reward of the job. I mean no one remembers Merijn Zeeman (after he was kicked out of the 2020 TdF) sitting at the side of the road during the Planche des Belles Filles TT with his stopwatch. No, the defeat, career defining moment, mockery, laughter & derision all landed on Roglic.
That's why I don't like reading things like "team was unhappy... etc.". I mean who gives a sh*t? It's not like he's Neymar or a party animal. He just races in whichever events they place him in & does whatever the medical staff & performance scientists tell him to. The rest is all down to him being a champion with the correct skillset & mentality.
This is probably all a moot point because I doubt there's any serious drama (nor do there appear to be any cracks... yet), but the point stands for future reference.