Teams & Riders Everybody needs a little bit of Roglstomp in their lives

[Salvarani]

Roglic dont deserve this.

The guy would have probably raced on with the pain to his own detriment, if the decision was in his hands.

It was probably the right call to get him out of the race, so he does not worsen his injuries.

At the same if they really were thinking about Roglic well-being, they would have taken him out of the race long before this. JV is no heroes in my eyes. They used him to get what they want, which is the win, no matter what it seems like.

And when Roglic fulfilled his purpose... they probably thought it would be good to take him out. The others should have been enough going into the third week with a significant lead to defend BUT they forget about Murphys law. Because everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.

 

[ontheroad]

He helped Jonas 1 entire time! How heroic of him!

Also the one time he has ever helped one of his teammates.

I have a lot of respect for Roglic, but the guy has been known to never ride for anyone than himself. Including when it comes to riding for medals for Slovenia in the World or Olympics.

I also get it. He is ambitious and is getting older so he knows he needs to grab every chance he gets.

And what should the Tour do to be respectful to Roglic? put bubblewrap around every corner so he cannot hurt himself?…Roglic is a rider who is known to fall often, last year he fell on a straight road, supposedly “attacked” by Colbrelli

In fairness it WAS pretty heroic when you consider that it was far and away the most decisive moment of the tour and that Roglic was still suffering whilst making the move. He offered himself up as a sacrificial lamb. It's also probably not wrong to think that Roglic is struggling with injury and is also having to come to terms with the fact that he is now effectively the number 2 GC rider on the team. That can't be easy for any sportsman with an ounce of competitive instinct let alone a 3 times grand tour winner.

 

[Eeslliw]

He helped Jonas 1 entire time! How heroic of him!

Why help him for 21 days when 1 time will suffice . He has enough of a gap that now is all on Jonas. His only job is to cover Pogacar himself and that is it. If he won't be able to do that, he won't win Tour. Simple as that. Even UAE DS said the same. Now is not about the strenght of the teams, but mano a mano fight and that will decide the winner.

You are obviously fan of Pogacar and a little bit mad about Roglic. But if you can't see how bad he was last couple of days you are very biased. He couldn't follow peloton in first 10 km of the race. What help could he possibly provide?

Also the one time he has ever helped one of his teammates.

Not really (AGR last year, MSR this year) but you have some point.

 

[Tinnekeisabella]

And this one time might be exactly the only time that was neccessary. Vinge is in yellow thanks to that. No need to downplay his role and no need to use exclamation points either...


What is he going to do? From the 1st place in GC standings help the guy in 5th? He has rarely been in a position where he wasn't the leader. He was in fact usually either leading the GC standings (or was at leat by far the best ranked from his team) or was injured.


This year - apologise for putting a (whatever it was) in the middle of the road.
Last year - pick a more appropriate route in the first week.

Like I said, this is not valid only for Roglič. Tour should increase its safety standards like other dangerous sports have (e.g. F1) and stop putting riders under unneccersary risk.

And besides - Roglič or TJV never stated he is "abandoning his team" to increase his Vuelta chances. It was to allow himself to heal. That is just the author's claim which she supports by zero evidence...

Ask Wout at for example Milan-Sanremo where Primoz was?

 

[CyclistAbi]

If they manage to lose this race then JV will just have to do the unthinkable. I don't see any other alternative. And that is to be 100% behind Roglič on the Tour 2023.

 

[Lequack]

Or they go in with 4 leaders.

 

[Tinnekeisabella]

Why help him for 21 days when 1 time will suffice . He has enough of a gap that now is all on Jonas. His only job is to cover Pogacar himself and that is it. If he won't be able to do that, he won't win Tour. Simple as that. Even UAE DS said the same. Now is not about the strenght of the teams, but mano a mano fight and that will decide the winner.

You are obviously fan of Pogacar and a little bit mad about Roglic. But if you can't see how bad he was last couple of days you are very biased. He couldn't follow peloton in first 10 km of the race. What help could he possibly provide?



Not really (AGR last year, MSR this year) but you have some point.

Who says it will be the decisive moment of the Tour? Who says that one time suffices?

we still have the 3 most gruelling mountain stages to go….

It seems like Jumbo and the Jumbo fans really think this in the bag…2 min 22 is a good difference but one bad day at lourdes hautacam and it could be gone…

They are once again underestimating Pogi

 

[Rackham]

Honestly there isn't even much controversy on the issue, i.e. none of the major outlets are kicking up a fuss.

It's just a selectively small-ish group of dinosaurs who treat the Tour de France like the battle of Verdun, i.e. fight until you're dead & then fight some more.

Lance, Hincapie, Bruyneel, Philippa York, i.e. these people have an unhealthy relationship with the TdF. The former trio in particular have based their entire existence & self-esteem on aggrandizing the Tour. I think Benji Naesen from Lanterne Rouge said it best, i.e. Roglic's health is more important than Vingegaard's yellow. That's the bottom line & that's a point which those aforementioned walking relics from a bygone era refuse to understand.

And let's be real here, it's not like Roglic & Vingegaard can't chat, discuss the race & Roglic help Vinge with regards to dealing with the pressure etc. from the moment smart phones exist. I think Philippa York's generation must have used carrier pigeons or something to send each other messages if they weren't standing in the same room. Nowadays? iPhones & iPads with wi-fi are a thing.

Just saying.

 

[bNator]

Ask Wout at for example Milan-Sanremo where Primoz was?

Where was Primož in last year’s Amstel Gold? Or this year’s Itzulia? Or this year’s Tour?

Sure there are better doms than him but he’s not really a dom is he? But to claim he’s a bad team player after he contributed a lion’s share to Vingegaard’s yellow is a bit rich…

There are a lot of riders out there with far worse palmares than Roglic who will do a lot less dom work than him…

 

[noob]

Demanding an injured rider to stay in a race is frigging sociopathy. This could be any rider and my opinion would still stand. Awful, just awful!

 

[Tinnekeisabella]

Where was Primož in last year’s Amstel Gold? Or this year’s Itzulia? Or this year’s Tour?

Sure there are better doms than him but he’s not really a dom is he? But to claim he’s a bad team player after he contributed a lion’s share to Vingegaard’s yellow is a bit rich…

There are a lot of riders out there with far worse palmares than Roglic who will do a lot less dom work than him…

well he better get used to being a dom though….

and it is not an excuse that there are worser teamplayers than him, there are also lots who are better teamplayers, 2 of those being Jonas in the Dauphine and Wout at Paris-Nice. Both of them he leaves behind now.

 

[Logic-is-your-friend]

It's pretty simple. If Roglic was not in pain, or endangering his health by staying in the Tour, then he should have stayed in the tour. If he was in pain or sick or risking making his injuries worse etc, then he had every right to get out of the Tour.

If he only got out of the Tour just to prepare for the Vuelta, while there was no real issue preventing him to continue, then indeed it was a mistake by him or the team. Whether the decision came from him or the team, i have no idea. If he was feeling fine and he made the decision to quit, then it certainly could be seen as selfish. Him helping Vingegaard on stage 11 was great, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have helped him next week.

 

[Tinnekeisabella]

Demanding an injured rider to stay in a race is frigging sociopathy. This could be any rider and my opinion would still stand. Awful, just awful!

Jumbo left him in the race for over 10 says without any problem. Even using him while they could have saved him for later in the pyrenees and let his injury heal properly.

He could have done the one stage and decide on the restday today to pull out.

Again, I have seen him arrive. He was not in the pain he was in last year for example.

There is more into this than the injury, otherwise they had pulled him out way sooner.

 

[Extinction]

This is really unfair. Intead of being praised for his selfless heroic act of ensuring Vinge gets the yellow, he is being criticised for "abandoning his team". Maybe Kruijswijk should ride a couple of more stages as well instead of pussying out after a few broken bones?

As far as being "respectful to the Tour", as is mentioned in this article. I see no reason why Roglic should respect the Tour when the Tour doesn't respect him (or other riders, for that matter) by subjecting them to danger completely unneccessarily. Let's remember that Roglic is out due to a mistake made by the organiser. For which he and other riders received no apology whatsoever. So no - I don't think Roglic owes the Tour anything...

Totally disagree. York was being deliberately polemical, however, the sport has been built and sustained on heroic romance. When the Lion of Flanders rode on with a broken collarbone (idem Hamilton), his mechanic putting a tounge of white tape on the handlebars for Magnini to bite in defiance of his calvary or Hinault soldering on to win the Tour with a broken face; this the stuff of Homeric epic. And this is so rare in modernity. Cycling and cyclists are not normal.

The point I think is that cycling is not a game like football (soccer), and it's no wonder cyclists are compared to boxers. The Tour is a sacred procession as much as a race, which means only 'death' should negate a rider from that sacred precinct of Paris. It Is the Ithaca of sport.

But these evidently are old rituals of little consideration in today's hyper-calculated Cycling. Having said that, surely York intended to chastize Roglic, because he is too hard as nails to end the Tour with a potential team winner thusly.

 

[Salvarani]

I think the question is. Why pull him when they did and not earlier, if he was in pain?

If he has been in pain for days but still rode on, they should be ashamed. Because then they have simply used him to win this at any cost necessary. Maybe they will. They got it in their own hands still.

Did it go like this? "You done a great service for the team, but we probably dont need you in the third week as things stand. It is better if you rest now." If so, karma hit them big time yesterday.

He should have been pulled and not continued from the beginning. Not raced on and potentially worsened his injuries.

If Vingegaard loses this Tour and Roglic season is ruined. Then they will look like complete fools, but I cant say I would feel sorry for them. Only for Roglic since this might cost him the most.

 

[bNator]

well he better get used to being a dom though….

and it is not an excuse that there are worser teamplayers than him, there are also lots who are better teamplayers, 2 of those being Jonas in the Dauphine and Wout at Paris-Nice. Both of them he leaves behind now.

I don’t agree they are better team players at all. But seeing how you do not respond well to reason I don’t wish to continue this discussion with you…

 

[Extinction]

Roglic dont deserve this.

The guy would have probably raced on with the pain to his own detriment, if the decision was in his hands.

It was probably the right call to get him out of the race, so he does not worsen his injuries.

At the same if they really were thinking about Roglic well-being, they would have taken him out of the race long before this. JV is no heroes in my eyes. They used him to get what they want, which is the win, no matter what it seems like.

And when Roglic fulfilled his purpose... they probably thought it would be good to take him out. The others should have been enough going into the third week with a significant lead to defend BUT they forget about Murphys law. Because everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

Well they kept him in the race for a week after, so it has nothing to do with his injuries, otherwise they would have pulled him out immediately. This is all about team politics. Roglic is telling the "official position," which means he isn't content to see Vingegaard achieve that which he failed so spectacularly to do and that, with Wout on Sky duty, has convinced the team executives he'd be best spared to focus on the Vuelta. Of course, Jumbo could not have foresee the incumbant debacle of crashes. The team should have demanded that Roglic continue, as his injuries were no excuse to pull out

 

[Rackham]

I think the question is. Why pull him when they did and not earlier, if he was in pain?

If he has been in pain for days but still rode on, they should be ashamed. Because then they have simply used him to win this at any cost necessary. Maybe they will. They got it in their own hands still.

Did it go like this? "You done a great service for the team, but we probably dont need you in the third week as things stand. It is better if you rest now." If so, karma hit them big time yesterday.

He should have been pulled and not continued from the beginning. Not raced on and potentially worsened his injuries.

If Vingegaard loses this Tour and Roglic season is ruined. Then they will look like complete fools, but I cant say I would feel sorry for them. Only for Roglic since this might cost him the most.

Yeah the team topic is something else entirely.

Jumbo isn't SkyIneos, it's not a team with a massive budget & riders who exist in a "win or you're out" environment, at least usually. It still retained (until recently, anyway) a certain family-type oriented ethic where riders would be looked after & protected. I mean for example there's not many teams who would have tolerated Tom Dumoulin's legendary mood swings over the past couple of years, but Jumbo did. I believe that does them credit.

But (huge but), the obsession with the TdF has in my mind driven them to renege on many of their values & made them borderline callous. Roglic was for all intents & purposes (& this is coming from someone who watches them attentively) set up as a patsy in this Tour de France 2022. He existed as a co-leader to draw out Pogacar & leave Jumbo's number one rival exposed to their 'real' leader Vingegaard. I believe (based on everything we've seen so far) Roglic most likely had zero idea this was the intention before the race. Just watch Roglic focus on Vingegaard's wheel in the Dauphiné on Solaison. Uncomfortable. Why was Rogla's spare bike given 3rd preferential placement on the team car on the cobbled stage (as mentioned on Eurosport)? Also uncomfortable. Etc. etc.

This is just me but I think Jumbo somewhat honey potted Roglic by encouraging bonding with Vingegaard. It's like they wanted to 'nicely' encourage him into a Kruijswijk type reconversion in this Tour. This is also in my mind evident based on the crazy numbers Vingegaard has achieved so far. In the end Roglic is like Gizmo in the movie Gremlins, i.e. a nicest guy in the peloton who has unfortunately spawned two watts monsters who've stolen his dream (Pogacar in 2020 & now Vinge). I mean I'm 100% convinced Roglic never ever intended to get pushed-out of the leadership of his own team by Jonas Vingegaard, no matter how Jumbo presented them as super-duper friends.

The Tour de France is Rogla's career objective so yeah, he probably feels pretty sh*t right now, both physically & mentally based on everything that happened.

Just my opinion.

 

[Miha81]

Or they go in with 4 leaders.

They already have 3 leaders. Just in different jersey category

TBH sometimes it seems like every two riders in the squad have different leader.

 

[Salvarani]

Well they kept him in the race for a week after, so it has nothing to do with his injuries, otherwise they would have pulled him out immediately. This is all about team politics. Roglic is telling the "official position," which means he isn't content to see Vingegaard achieve that which he failed so spectacularly to do and that, with Wout on Sky duty, has convinced the team executives he'd be best spared to focus on the Vuelta.

He said after a few stages he was in pain. He was obviously injured. I think they kept him in the race to use him as a pawn against Pogacar and it worked.

I think they played a risky game. It got them yellow and they then gambled on letting Roglic out of the race early after he had served his purpose, thinking they would still manage in the third week with the rest of the team. They couldnt forsee anything like yesterday happen.

Somehow Roglic ended up as the biggest loser since it now looks like he abandoned Jonas and he is also in more pain then he probably should be. He should have left the race after his crash. Someone at Jumbo has got it wrong.

It doesnt make any sense to let him race on for 10 days, when injured, and then let him out of the race much later. Especially a day before a rest day.

Unless he pressured the team to do so, but I just cant see Roglic doing that though. I cant see him doing what he has done in the race for Jonas and then wanting to get out. He would want to race on, even if hurt badly. Hence someone at Jumbo should have got him out of the race sooner, but they want to win at every cost it seems like. They still has a great chance to.

 

[Rackham]

Well they kept him in the race for a week after, so it has nothing to do with his injuries, otherwise they would have pulled him out immediately. This is all about team politics. Roglic is telling the "official position," which means he isn't content to see Vingegaard achieve that which he failed so spectacularly to do and that, with Wout on Sky duty, has convinced the team executives he'd be best spared to focus on the Vuelta. Of course, Jumbo could not have foresee the incumbant debacle of crashes. The team should have demanded that Roglic continue, as his injuries were no excuse to pull out

Never forget the crash happened because Jumbo had pulled his doms back to assist Vingegaard, revealing their hand right there & then (only Laporte remained with Roglic). Roglic hadn't put a foot wrong on the cobbles either but the subsequent crash (on a town roundabout caused by a tv moto) was simply a freak accident which exposed the decision to leave him isolated up front.

After that it was all downhill & we've gone over this stuff extensively over the past 10 days (lack of support, crazy team tactics which were detrimental to his chances etc.).

In the end he played along with the team's strategy & got his revenge on Pogacar on stage 11. But now? He doesn't owe this team anything.

 

[Extinction]

He said after a few stages he was in pain. He was obviously injured. I think they kept him in the race to use him as a pawn against Pogacar and it worked.

I think they played a risky game. It got them yellow and they then gambled on letting Roglic out of the race early after he had served his purpose, thinking they would still manage in the third week with the rest of the team. They couldnt forsee anything like yesterday happen.

Somehow Roglic ended up as the biggest loser since it now looks like he abandoned Jonas and he is also in more pain then he probably should be. He should have left the race after his crash. Someone at Jumbo has got it wrong.

It doesnt make any sense to let him race on for 10 days, when injured, and then let him out of the race much later. Especially a day before a rest day.

Unless he pressured the team to do so, but I just cant see Roglic doing that though. I cant see him doing what he has done in the race for Jonas and then wanting to get out. He would want to race on, even if hurt badly. Hence someone at Jumbo should have got him out of the race sooner, but they want to win at every cost it seems like. They still has a great chance to.

To the bolded, I'm perplexed his injuries were so bad that initially he was capable of stellar support on the Galibier (both times), but suddenly is worse off for it. My point is that I think he could carry on, with no emduring consequences, other than not being ready for the Vuelta. York's point thus has a certain validity, because in any case the Tour is the Tour and one should finish at all costs, and he is abandoning his team when they have a real fighting chance of winning it, appart from the disaster that has befallen them. although this is another reason why you don't pull riders frivolously.

 

[Extinction]

Never forget the crash happened because Jumbo had pulled his doms back to assist Vingegaard, revealing their hand right there & then (only Laporte remained with Roglic). Roglic hadn't put a foot wrong on the cobbles either but the subsequent crash (on a town roundabout caused by a tv moto) was simply a freak accident which exposed the decision to leave him isolated up front.

After that it was all downhill & we've gone over this stuff extensively over the past 10 days (lack of support, crazy team tactics which were detrimental to his chances etc.).

In the end he played along with the team's strategy & got his revenge on Pogacar on stage 11. But now? He doesn't owe this team anything.

It seams they had to pull back doms, but who is to say Roglic's? What now is becoming increasingly evident is that the team knew Vingegaard was simply stronger and so acted accordingly. Keeping Roglic as a leader, however, was not duplicitous, but hedging your bets against the likekyhood of incident and inexperience foiling strength. Better to go in with a spiare/backup against Pogacar than have your eggs in one basket.

 

[Salvarani]

To the bolded, I'm perplexed his injuries were so bad that initially he was capable of stellar support on the Galibier (both times), but suddenly is worse off for it. My point is that I think he could carry on, with no emduring consequences, other than not being ready for the Vuelta. York's point thus has a certain validity, because in any case the Tour is the Tour and One should finish at all costs, and he is abandoning his squad when they have a real fighting chance of winning it.

I dont understand what you are perplexed about. If you are riding with an injury, you are sure to make it worse. You might be able to perform still, close to your abilities, but you are gonna pay for it later. Hence they should have pulled him out earlier, and not when they did now much later. Especially since Roglic expressed he was in great pain in stages after the crash.

 

[CyclistAbi]

This is settled then. If they win Rogličes contribution was negligible. If they lose then it's Rogličes fault.

We got it covered.