2023 Giro d’Italia winner Primož Roglič may not be at the race this year, but his Bora-Hansgrohe team says he is building well for the Tour de France, with his injuries from the Itzulia Basque Country now firmly in the rear view mirror.
Like so many other top names, Roglič was caught up in the horrendous late crash in stage 4 of the Itzulia at the start of April, in the Slovenian’s case while leading the race, and although he did not suffer any fractures, he abandoned with a knee injury and then skipped the Ardennes Classics.
However, as head sports director at Bora-Hansgrohe Rolf Aldag told Cyclingnews at the start of stage 2 of the Giro, Roglič is currently continuing with his full training program for July, with recons of the Pyrenean Tour stages and more training camps to be followed by a participation, as expected, in the Criterium du Dauphine.
“I don’t know if Primož is watching the Giro or not,” Aldag said regarding whether the Slovenian was interested in seeing how Tadej Pogačar and co. were faring in the early stages of the race he won last year but decided to sit out in 2024. “But I do know I’ll be seeing him soon for another recon of the Pyrenees and then we go to altitude. Then we’ll go together to the Dauphine.”
“So Primož has to live with the fact that he’s going to see me more in the next two months than his wife and family,” Aldag said with a laugh.“But things are looking very positive. For sure he lost [preparation] time [as a result of the crash], for sure we would have loved to win the Itzulia Pais Vasco GC with him, that’s also clear. But now, I think he was doing really well.”
Roglič has so far had just 11 full race days with his new Bora-Hansgrohe squad, which he switched to from Jumbo-Visma at the start of the year, with Paris-Nice in March his first race of the season. After that he went to Itzulia Basque Country, where he lined up against the likes of Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), taking the jersey on the first time trial stage and holding it until the day he had to leave because of the crash that took all three – and more – out of the race.
“That result is not there, but obviously we at least have Paris-Nice, which didn’t work out as planned, but we had some very positive signs," said Aldag.
“We knew integration takes time after eight years in the same squad” [Jumbo-Visma], “which is a super-organised, structured team and that there would be some hiccups. But Pais Vasco was a sign he was moving in the right direction, and now we just pick up on that, catch up on that and continue that story.”
The story has always had the Tour de France as a focal point. After winning the Giro d'Italia last year Roglič skipped the race – where his then teammate Vingegaard swept up a second overall victory in a row – but with his new team comes the opportunity to take aim at the one Grand Tour where the Slovenian has not claimed overall victory.
“We’re not really afraid of the Tour start, the Tour result or anything,” said Aldag.
Injury wise there were no lasting consequences for Roglič from the Itzulia crash, Aldag said. "His training is producing really good numbers. So it’s not just what he says about how he feels, we have objective numbers and he’s doing pretty good.”
As for the current Grand Tour that is underway and the team that is at the Giro d’Italia, Bora-Hansgrohe will be relying on Danny van Poppel for the bunch sprints, with teammate Dani Martinez – later second on the stage at Oropa and running third on GC – looking for a top five overall in Rome, Aldag says.
“That’s realistic to plan for. You always hope for better, but realistically winning the Giro with Pogačar here is probably in the categories of dreams and hopes, maybe a combination of both.”
“But apart from [Tadej] Pogačar there is a lot of room for manoeuvre, and for sure we’ll go for it with him. Protect him, look for spaces, and take opportunities, and his talent will hopefully allows us to finish somewhere between [GC placing number] two and five.”
Further down the line, Roglič will return to front-line action at the Tour de France, where the team will likely be looking to step up their GC battle plans for the summer at the biggest bike race of all. But for now, it’s Martinez who is looking to carry the torch for Bora-Hansgrohe in a race which the German team won overall back in 2022 with Jai Hindley, and where they are surely looking to shine again this May.
