Lost in his many wins and his dominance lately (in short stage races at least) is his ability to recover and fight back after the crash even if it happened in the same race or stage. In fact many of his biggest wins had been accompanied with crashes.
Just to mention a few. In his first Giro 2016 he crashed like 5 times before he got his first GT stage victory in a ITT.
Then he crashed during a stage when he got his first TdF win in 2017 after he crashed in the opening ITT during the same race.
T-A 2018, he crashes, the next day he wins a stage.
Pais Vasco 2018. Heavy crash during the final and queen stage when in leaders' jersey. Got attacked by several riders, mainly Movistar, but keeps yellow with many difficulties and goes on to win the race.
In the WCRR of the same year he was also involved in a crash. He lost more then a minute to the group of favourites and somehow gets back with the help of his teammates just before the decisive climb. He couldn't recover enough though and gets dropped but not before he tries a semi attack.
In 2019 are the two most recent and well documented ones. In the Giro he crashed on the Civiglio descent and got ill during the second part of the race. His girlfriend was asked several times in different interviews about those moments. She said she never saw Primož suffering so much. He was pale, he couldn't eat. She said he was becoming numb to all the surroundings and he didn't even react to friends talking to him. It was scary. It's a miracle he even finished the race yet alone finish on the podium. I think the driving force that kept him going were the thousands of Slovenian fans by the road.
We know what happened in the 2019 Vuelta. A crash in the opening TTT for Jumbo Visma where they lost around a minute. Kruijswijk had to quit because of the consequences of the crash, Primož goes on the attack the next day on hilly terrain and gets a big chunk of time back from his GC rivals (bar Quintana). He crashed two more times in that Vuelta but still manages to win the race without too much apparent troubles.
I think this aspect of him gets overlooked a bit because of the apparent ease of some of his wins lately. But he is one extremely resilient and tough individual. That's why I was a little surprised when he didn't start the last stage of CdD while in yellow. From what I understand he wanted to continue but the team suggested to end the race for precautionary reasons. Hopefully he'll recover completely and he'll be at the start of the Tour in his best form.
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