There is obviously one big not so positive outcome from what happened. Rogla targeting the Tour and not having a chance to show on the road, the results. This obviously is the biggest blow on personal level and for this sport and this race in general.
Beyond that i feel that we can be rather optimistic. Being his first season, or better half of the season, Rogla riding for Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe. We went from Rogla not being in the mood, due to team forgetting in keeping him warm, to first prestigious ITT win, to first stage race win, to riding half of the Tour on where Rogla was up there, fighting with the best. First nine days of the race really being demanding, an all out racing across all terrains, still Rogla on the bullish trajectory. Such things should in my opinion not be taken for granted. In the end it is in my opinion good, that Rogla at least got such feedback.
Another thing we seen is UAE and Visma, as teams, they are playing with each other and the rest of the teams don't come remotely close. Here i feel that in the future seasons Rogla should get much better team support and although ATM only at beginning, he already is riding for a new super team. If riders of a calibre like Remco and/or Wout would to join in some future, that in my opinion wouldn't undermine Rogličes ambitions, instead it would likely only increase the level of progress in areas such as access to best materials, nutrition, tactics ... Once the team develops a new youngster into what they say to be new Max Verstappen of cycling. Then indeed other rides in the team will likely get sidetracked a bit. Said that realistically we are at minimum 3 to 5 years from that.
As for the crashes debates, people tend to forget easily, we have riders directly out of an ICU competing and basically every single rider from the top favourites already crashed this season. Some people not even paying attention to things like crashing alone or being crashed out. You quickly realize fans are really not the best metric in this regards. Riders just crash a whole lot.
We had long talks and determined injury prevention is something governing bodies are responsible for the most. For example most of the injuries Jonas, Remco and Rogla sustained in this season could have easily be prevented, with better safety apparel. Again, this is something for governing bodies to address properly, one positive side being, teams are now investing way too much money into riders and it's not economically viable any more, for riders being injured. Especially as apparel costing less then an average price of racing bike could prevent most of the injuries mentioned. I am sure that UCI will be pressured, by teams, into mandating the usage of such apparel in future races and the number of injuries will get substantially reduced as a result. Organisers, as i seen debate about that, in my opinion they won't take responsibility in the area of injuries prevention. And they are not all that good at crashes prevention either, likely due to not having much liability.
All in all Rogla, although not finishing, has again been a leader of a super team in formation at the Tour, messing with other favourites balls, legs and intelligence, successfully, now that in my opinion still warrants for a cautious smile.
So what is next. Two options at hand, to win a one day race event or yes, indeed, a GT could still be in the books. We'll see.
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