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

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Yes, an incredible season and I wonder if he is only going to get better - scary. He is becoming like Valverde except even better - at sprints, climbs, TT, descending, maintaining form all season. His only real letdown was being caught by Rohan Dennis in the Worlds TT. Peaking too early and fading slightly in the Giro not really a letdown.
Ofcourse it is, he wanted to win the Giro.
 
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First congratulations to Bauke Mollema. He saw the opportunity and grabbed it with both hands.

As for Roglič and his team. Overall a good performance at Il Lombardia. I feel that from all the favorites, listed before the race, only Roglič truly wanted to win. The rest of them just wanted to finish ahead of Roglič today. In such races a lot of times somebody else will win, not being considered a favorite before the race. In the future races, and in such circumstances, Roglič likely will be prepared to play more tactical games, in the last kilometers, to secure a podium, like the rest of the favorites did today.

As the 2019 cycling season has finished today, for Roglič. He is getting more and more relaxed, when it comes to the media. I knew that will start to happen, once his trophy collection will grow a bit. I like the fact Roglič is only getting better and better in Italy. That shows, he is only getting better an better at climbing. This will for sure help him in the future. Like if for example some GT race, TDF 2020, won't be all that ITT friendly, due to i guess race organizers trying to prefer climbers. As there i guess always is a bit of politics involved in such things. Dumoulin going to TDF 2020, that will likely help. Giro makes no sense to me, knee injury, and Dumoulin main focus in 2020 likely will be the Olympics, and maybe La Vuelta.

Roglič is in my opinion the best overall pro cyclist of the 2019 season. Now i guess off to some sailing, well deserved. As for the rest. In anticipation of the 2020 season, hopefully all favorites will be healthy and well prepared. That should result in some first class racing!
 
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I agree that he's the best cyclist of the season, but I don't get this ''everyone raced against me'' narrative. Who raced against him, where and when? I didn't saw that. I saw his one attack which group of four later caught. Is that it?! This is a one day racing, things works different than in GT's, he needs little more experience, especially now that he's seen as a favorite in almost every race he enters.
 
All racing against Roglič, that actually isn't all that problematic. As if a rider is an absolute favorite, basically all are racing against you anyway. On how i read what Roglič wanted to say is the group of favorites likely could have done more, to catch the Mollema. Doing that, they would likely have substantially increase the chance of Roglič winning. By not doing that, for sure Roglič won't win, but nor will any other favorite.

Therefore i see it more as a question to other favorites. What are we doing here, are we racing for the second or for the first place?
 
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In the end the winner is the best, yes. That is how i understood his answer, and hard to argue against that.

As i wrote here:


I feel that in season 2019 Roglič was still building the needed respect, for other favorites to accept him, as one of them. As in races, such as Giro 2019 and Il Lombardia, other favorites focused way too much on racing against Roglič, compared to trying to win the race. This will in my opinion change in the future. Racing to win will become more important again, and if being second, better to be second to Roglič, compared to being second to a non favorite.
 
Are we sure they were racing against Roglic and not racing to take Valverde to the line as he has the best sprint in the group? Also if Roglic is complaining about everyone racing against him maybe he should go talk to Sagan and Valverde as they are both very used to that senario. Valverde said no one wanted to cooperate, so that's what you end up with.
 
Are we sure they were racing against Roglic and not racing to take Valverde to the line as he has the best sprint in the group? Also if Roglic is complaining about everyone racing against him maybe he should go talk to Sagan and Valverde as they are both very used to that senario. Valverde said no one wanted to cooperate, so that's what you end up with.
Many rivals have spent their entire teams to bring Valverde to the line in FW and LBL many times. Sagan has that issue much more but he's been fortunate in that regard a few times at the WC
 
If Roglič is going to attend TDF 2020, this is what he will be competing with:


A bunch of TDF, Giro ... winners in the same team, plus a few other great teams. Therefore i don't really see it as Roglič vs. Dumoulin vs. Kruijswijk vs. ... If any of them wants to win TDF in foreseeable future, they will all need to invest a heck of an effort as a team. And still, that might not be enough.

Looking forward to new season as it looks like it will be a great and exciting one!
 
Indeed, an interesting move for sure. I doubt he would go, if he wouldn't feel, he can win it.

As for TDF 2020:


Looking at the route. On the pros side, there is a lot of climbing, but most of the climbs shouldn't represent an oppressing issue for Roglič, if healthy, being in a good shape and having a good team support. On the cons side, ITT. They added one rather short ITT stage, at the end of the race, and still a lot of climbing in it. Here Roglič likely won't have any advantage at all. Long story short, they didn't want to give any real advantage to Roglič. In that case ITT would have less climbing and would be positioned around the middle of the race. From tactics point of view, Roglič will therefore need to make some difference climbing. An successful attack on some stage. As that will likely be extremely hard thing to do, due to the competition. Therefore i guess TDF 2020 could end up being a nervous wreck, fighting for each second till the end, winner not having a single bad day. Hard task ahead of Roglič, for sure. If he wouldn't be focusing on TDF 2020 for years now, i could imagine he would choose some other GT race in 2020. But due to doing just that, i am rather sure, he will attend TDF 2020, and will win it.
 
He got 3rd place today in the ITT, win went to his Jumbo Visma teammate Jos van Emden.


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If Roglič wouldn't be focusing on TDF 2020 for years now, likely he would choose Giro in 2020. That ITT in the middle, that is where he could make a difference. Some really hard climbs after, where he would need to defend the advantage, against best of climbers. But he is good, when in such situation.

I am still leaning towards TDF 2020, but won't be surprised if Roglič selects Giro and Olympics in 2020.
 
Looking at Giro route, Jumbo would be insane not to send either Dumoulin or Roglic to Giro. One to Giro, one for the Tour, and Kruijswijk to Vuelta.
Roglic was promised Tour de France leadership. I don't think the Giro route has convinced him otherwise. It's not necessarily better for him. The third week of the Giro makes it an attrition race, which doesn't appear to be Roglic' biggest strength.
 
If one, send Dumoulin to the Giro.

I'm not sure who of the two has the bigger chance at winning the Tour, but Dumoulin has a way better shot at the Giro in my opinion.

I'd simply ask both which they want to ride. I assume they've talked about this at length before the routes were disclosed and from what I gather Dumoulin seems more open to riding the Giro anyways.
 
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