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Primož Roglič

Aug 31, 2014
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It pleases me to see that everyone is onboard with Roglic becoming a top TTer straight away.

EDIT
Since this has now been made into a thread, I'll just add some more context. Primož's performances in the 2016 Giro ITTs came as a big surprise to pretty much everyone. A hair from winning the shorter 10k, he managed to win the 40k ITT, which was the first longer ITT he's ever done, and his first WT victory. Some specialists work hard in this discipline since childhood, yet Roglič seems to breeze to the top of the leaderboard with relative ease. He also experienced technical problems, had to change his bike seconds before the start, and later dropped his power meter and decided to "take it easy".

He's said to have bought his first bike in 2012, and started winning pro races in 2014 while riding for Adria Mobil. Mostly lauded as a promising climber, he apparently attended his first ever "high altitude training camp" before the Giro. What that means, only pro cyclists really know... Clearly he's advancing very quickly, and this should ring a few alarm bells. Come on, it's pro cycling after all!

He blogs here: https://primozroglic.com/
 
Re:

Praying Mantis said:
It pleases me to see that everyone is onboard with Roglic becoming a top TTer straight away.

Landa is just too perfecta package for the clinic, Roglic is an afterthought. But replace "skis" with "sand shoes" and we've got our favorite narrative.

Ina non-condescending way, what is his background? I know the whole ski jumping thing, first GT, etc... but what has he been like as a cyclist the last few years? Was he a good cross country skier, or just a jumper?
 
Aug 31, 2014
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Re: Re:

More Strides than Rides said:
Ina non-condescending way, what is his background? I know the whole ski jumping thing, first GT, etc... but what has he been like as a cyclist the last few years? Was he a good cross country skier, or just a jumper?

Can't say that I know much about him, but he hasn't even achieved a top 10 ITT before, not even in **** small races. Now he shows up and joins the elite? And he's "unlucky" to get beaten by established TT megastar Dumoulin, and today he gets his "revenge"? Man, you really gotta stay on your toes to follow cycling these days, new stars just explode onto the scene, and if they check the right boxes, the media eats it all up.

Prior TT results: http://www.procyclingstats.com/rider.php?id=174582&season=&c=5&year=&nation=&race=&types%5B%5D=3&sort=date&ApplyFilter=Filter

Quotes by Roglic today from http://www.cyclingquotes.com/news/reactions_from_stage_9_of_the_giro_ditalia

The Bianchi Aquila time trial bike is obviously very fast and I enjoy riding on it. Besides that, a time trial is a fight against yourself, you have to control yourself. That comes quite close to ski jumping. That didn’t mean that I immediately knew that time trials suited me, but it seems to be so.
After approximately ten kilometres, I lost my computer and my bottle. I indicated to my sport director to pick my computer but I'm not sure if he understood what I was telling him. I also lost motivation and I decided to take it easy. But I was feeling fantastic uphill so I just pushed and pushed for the fun of it. I was really slow and unlucky at the beginning but very fast and lucky at the end because I only felt a drop or two while the riders after me got the pouring rain. This is strange, very strange.
When I quit ski jumping and started cycling, I was dreaming of becoming the best but I didn’t expect to succeed so quickly. The longest individual time trial I did before today was 10km long.

But well, what do I know. Could just be world class talent. The Chianti TT was of course heavily influenced by the weather, but still. Still. Anyway, welcome to the top Roglic!
 
I think we need to start a clinic thread for Primož Roglič, considering his meteoric rise to the top of GT time trialing.

It may be that he's a world class ITT talent that only showed his class now, but in cycling these outliers tend to have baggage attached. I will start a clinic thread for him and move some of these comments into it when I get to my PC.

If anyone has an issue with this now is the time to speak up..
 
Mar 14, 2009
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Hi clinic!

My name is Primož Roglič and I like to fly high! :eek:

I can also jump high, ... all the way to the top of the TT leaderboard and without any TT training! :confused:
 
From the Giro Doping thread

More Strides than Rides said:
Praying Mantis said:
After approximately ten kilometres, I lost my computer and my bottle. I indicated to my sport director to pick my computer but I'm not sure if he understood what I was telling him. I also lost motivation and I decided to take it easy. But I was feeling fantastic uphill so I just pushed and pushed for the fun of it. I was really slow and unlucky at the beginning but very fast and lucky at the end because I only felt a drop or two while the riders after me got the pouring rain. This is strange, very strange.

wtf?
 
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:
received_10153631841178579.jpeg


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.
 
Re:

johnymax said:
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:
received_10153631841178579.jpeg


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.
Great post, thanks for the background information.

In my opinion, since he's been a world class athlete he has been exposed to trainers and methods that world class athletes are privy to. Making the switch to road cycling as a johnny come lately outlier doesn't exclude him from the same scrutiny any other grand tour stage winning cyclist would receive on this forum.

Being a world class athlete automatically comes with challenges and choices, whether it be skiing, running, biathlon, cycling, ect. In this day and age they're all suspect until they're not.
 
Apr 2, 2016
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hahahaha, reading all this comments is just sooo funny ! I can tell you that Primoz made 37.000k the first year when he bought his bike, because he knew that he has a lot of time to make up, if he wants to be a pro, and he wanted this so badly. He maybe isnt the best with interwievs, but I can asure you that mentally, he is on an outstanding level.
 
Jun 26, 2012
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Re:

Stelvio92 said:
hahahaha, reading all this comments is just sooo funny ! I can tell you that Primoz made 37.000k the first year when he bought his bike, because he knew that he has a lot of time to make up, if he wants to be a pro, and he wanted this so badly. He maybe isnt the best with interwievs, but I can asure you that mentally, he is on an outstanding level.

So that was in 2012. In an interview with siol, he said when he first met with someone from Radenska, he proudly told them that he has already ridden 3000 km. Then they sometimes do that distance in a month.
I guess he didn't make 37000 km.

Also this quote was interesting from the same interview from 2015.
Niste občutili nobenih pritiskov, da bi morali kdaj sami vzeti kakšno stvar?
Ne, prav nič se ne spoznam na te stvari. Vendarle sem šele začetnik. Dobrodošlo je, da je v tej novi dobi bistveno manj teh stvari in da je nadzor še večji.

Have you ever felt the need to take some PEDs?
No, I don't have any idea about that. But I'm only a begginer. Then he is telling about new era...
 
Well to be honest if you see rapid progress from a rider it is usually at the very beginning of his career. So it is not so unusual. Only after reaching plateau your progress stops dramatically and you need to fight for every watt and kg. Also lets add the fact that Roglic lacked technical and tactical skills which he is still gaining rapidly. Combining those Primoz had and still has big room for progress which may look 'not normal'.
 
Praying Mantis said:
It pleases me to see that everyone is onboard with Roglic becoming a top TTer straight away.

EDIT
Since this has now been made into a thread, I'll just add some more context. Primož's performances in the 2016 Giro ITTs came as a big surprise to pretty much everyone. A hair from winning the shorter 10k, he managed to win the 40k ITT, which was the first longer ITT he's ever done, and his first WT victory. Some specialists work hard in this discipline since childhood, yet Roglič seems to breeze to the top of the leaderboard with relative ease. He also experienced technical problems, had to change his bike seconds before the start, and later dropped his power meter and decided to "take it easy".

He's said to have bought his first bike in 2012, and started winning pro races in 2014 while riding for Adria Mobil. Mostly lauded as a promising climber, he apparently attended his first ever "high altitude training camp" before the Giro. What that means, only pro cyclists really know... Clearly he's advancing very quickly, and this should ring a few alarm bells. Come on, it's pro cycling after all!

He blogs here: https://primozroglic.com/

Appears now he was using a motor! :lol:
 
Jun 26, 2012
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Looks like those motors are really cheap if he even had one in a spare bike...

The evidence for using a motor is really weak. I do believe he is doping, but not a motor.
 

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