I usually don't participate in conversations in this part of the forum but since I follow Roglic closely and I actually started his thread in the other part of the forum I feel that I should write some more about him. I won't give you answers but can give you some information about his background.
He was a ski jumper, yes, and a pretty good one. He showed his talent very early. In 2006 he already won a Continental Cup event (second tier level after World Cup). In the same year he was silver medallist with the team in Junior World Championships and a year later he and his Slovenian team did even better and took the gold in the same competition. Some weeks later he was called up to the senior squad to compete in the season finale of the World Cup (highest level of ski jumping). Like every year in recent history it was a competition on the World's biggest ski jumping hill in Planica, Slovenia. In his first trial jump, a 17 years old Roglič, made a mistake and that coupled with a sudden gust of wind made him crash badly.
Video of the crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNRYgKyZBAI
In the next couple of months during his rehabilitation he was advised to use a bicycle for quicker recovery. He listened to the advice and started to ride pretty regularly. And he liked it, actually he liked it a lot. But then he went on with his ski jumping career until 2012 when he decided to end with the sport. During that span of time he still had some nice results but nothing extraordinary. He started losing motivation, so he decided it's best for him to quit while he's still young.
Meanwhile his love for cycling was growing. He started to compete in some recreational/amateur races in Slovenia at first with a borrowed mountain bike. He didn't have his own bike at the time. Here is a photo of him in one of those races on a borrowed bike:
He decided to give it a go and try to make it in road cycling. This was in 2012. He had no idea how things work in the world of cycling so he sent "job applications" to cycling clubs in Slovenia. Only one of them was interested. All the others didn't respond or replied to him that he's too old to start now. The one club that sent a training program to him was Radenska Rog from Ljubljana. He sold his motorcycle and bought a new bicycle. After that he was still only competing in recreational/amateur races but he quickly become the best amateur rider around and was usually crushing the opposition. It came so far that some of the best amateur racers from Slovenia didn't want to participate in races where Roglič was also competing, because they knew they would have no chance against him and didn't want to get humiliated by some novice.
After his wins in those races, some other teams took notice. A continental club Adria Mobil (biggest cycling team in Slovenia) also became interested. Roglic was sent to do some tests at the Faculty of sport in Ljubljana. The results of the tests were amazing. The person responsible of the tests said to Bogdan Fink, director of Adria Mobil : "The results of the tests are amazing. You have to give this guy a chance. He has huge potential." Fink listened and signed Roglic for the 2013 season.
When being asked about his tests, Roglic replied: "It's nice to hear about the results of the tests, but on the road it doesn't matter. It's completely different when you ride in the peloton. It's everything new to me. I have to learn basically everything of this sport, but I'm eager to start."
From that point on, his career is well documented with results you can easily find on procyclingstats for example. I'll point out some of his biggest/most important ones.
-Already in his first season 2013 he was 15th in the final GC of 2.1.Tour de Slovenie after working for his teamate Rogina who won the race.
- in 2014 he took his first victory in a hilly stage of 2.1.Tour de Azerbaijan. That race was won by Ilnur Zakarin;
Later he took several podium places in 2.1.Sibiu Cycling Tour with a final 3rd place in the GC behind his teamate Rogina and Davide Rebellin;
A month later he took his first victory in an one day race. He won the 1.2. Croatia-Slovenia;
He was 7th in 2.2 Giro del Friuli.
- 2015 is when he took a big step forward and also became attractive to some bigger teams. I won't be talking about his achievements because there are too many and you can easily find'em yourselves. I've just wanted to add a part of an interview with him that was made almost exactly a year ago (soon after he won the queen stage and the GC of Tour de Azerbaijan) and maybe could explain about his suddenly discovered TT ability:
Q: What type of rider would you like to become?
A: An allrounder. At first I was good only on the climbs. On the flat I had a lot of problems, but now I can be good on the flat as well and is much easier for me. I know I can be a very good time-trialist too, but it's difficult for me to comment on that. How can I ride a good time trial when I don't even have a TT bike. If I'll sit on the TT bike just a day before the start of the TT in Ljubljana (mind you...the conversation was about a month before Tour de Slovenie and he was talking about the 1st stage, a 9km ITT), how can you expect me to be fast. I know I have the ability, but I'm not used to ride that bike. We cannot compete with the WT teams in this aspect. We (the team Adria) are who we are, and we have to accept that. We can be compared to teams in our league.
He then got his TT bike a couple of weeks before the start of Tour de Slovenie and came 16th in the opening ITT. He then went on to win the queen stage beating Nieve on a MTF and also won the race overall.
Before the beginning of the current season he's done a lot of specific training on a TT bike for the first time in his career. I've thought already in Algarve and T-A his ITT results were very good. He placed 24th and 30th on flat courses. In T-A if I remember correctly only Nibali and Pinot (with his new TT abilities) were better than him among the GC guys (Roglic was going for GC in that race, he was doing well but the cancellation of the queen stage and a crash compromised his final result). Then a month before the Giro he was in altitude training with his team for the first time in his career.
So here you have some details about his career so far. I think it's very obvious he is extremely talented and his sudden explosion is due to his late arrival to the sport. Nobody knows where's the limit for him, nobody knows what type of rider he'll become. Actually you can see it in his answers that even he doesn't know where is he going to express himself the most. He is as surprised as everyone is.