{"id":236886,"date":"2025-07-04T07:59:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T07:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/236886\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T07:59:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T07:59:16","slug":"this-is-my-story-and-i-am-the-main-actor-primoz-roglic-at-peace-with-tour-de-france-heartache","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/236886\/","title":{"rendered":"‘This is my story and I am the main actor’ – Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d at peace with Tour de France heartache"},"content":{"rendered":"

Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a> is used to being chilled, projecting a nonchalant persona. Cool, calm and collected is a phrase he epitomises. But this, the deep and prolonged reflection, free of his usual cliches, was something else. This was Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d without pressure and stress, this was the Slovenian liberated. No more asking him if he\u2019ll ever win the Tour de France,<\/a> he\u2019s totally at peace with his career arc.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is writing their own story and their own things. This is my story and I am the main actor,\u201d the 35-year-old told the assembled press ahead of his seventh Tour, the race in which he so heartbreakingly lost yellow in 2020<\/a>, and has suffered more subsequent pain in the ensuing years, failing to finish the last three editions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody has their own story. You all know mine: I came from winter sports, ski jumping and switched to the road bike. It still, for me, feels incredible \u2013 crazy, actually \u2013 to be here, to be present in the biggest event in cycling, to have some impact and to try to do my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For the best part of the last decade, after he so famously swapped sports in his mid-20s, his best has been winning one-week stage races, four Vueltas a Espa\u00f1a and one Giro d\u2019Italia<\/a>. But the Tour has always remained elusive, the only race that refuses to be Roglified. He\u2019s felt the pressure and the expectation to win yellow, but now he no longer talks himself up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the way Tadej [Poga\u010dar], Jonas [Vingegaard] and Remco [Evenepoel] are riding, about myself I don\u2019t really care too much,\u201d he said. \u201cWe all know in the end what races I won and the races I didn\u2019t yet win. Yes, I have unfinished business with the Tour de France, but on the other hand, winning it or not, I\u2019m almost 36-years-old, and I am happy and proud that I am able to come to the Tour de France and be part of the biggest cycling event in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Does he still dream of winning the race? \u201cNo, I look at the race realistically. Like I said, winning it or not, it is what is. Myself, my family, everyone around me, it will be the same afterwards, but for sure it\u2019s still a challenge to keep me going.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Primo\u017e<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a conscious decision to let go, a new game plan perhaps to try to carve out some luck in the race that has so often been his nemesis. \u201cWith obviously growing up, not getting younger but definitely getting older, you learn some things and what actually helps you,\u201d he went on. \u201cFrom this point, it\u2019s helping [me to be more relaxed], to look at the facts that you are competing with Tadej, who is on another level, and others also.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Rogli\u010d only tends to finish a race one or two ways: either as the winner, or at home, having crashed out. His last one, the Giro d\u2019Italia, ended the latter way<\/a>. \u201cI was finished after the Giro,\u201d he said. \u201cI was on antibiotics with a bacterial infection and all I could do [since] was put in the work day after day. Yes, I was suffering, on my knees, but now we\u2019re here and we will see.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith every situation I try to learn something. It\u2019s always easier to learn when something goes wrong or not the way you want. When you\u2019re winning and doing good, it\u2019s hard to learn from it, it\u2019s hard to be realistic or look realistically in the mirror. With shit things, they show you; without bad things, you don\u2019t know what the good things are. You always have to try to learn something out of every situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite having won 91 bike races \u2013 ninety-one \u2013 Rogli\u010d is as synonymous with defeat as he is triumph. He\u2019s had plenty of practice learning from bad moments. \u201cIt\u2019s not only about the victories, and from my personal career, I don\u2019t remember a lot of victories if I am honest, but the hard moments are what I remember more.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, a reminder, is Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d speaking, a man usually of very few words. Still here is, open, letting us all into the pain he\u2019s felt through the years. But now he\u2019s free. There is, of course, a serious point: Rogli\u010d, it appears, is bidding au revoir to his Tour chances. The time will come to maybe critique this approach, but for now let\u2019s just embrace a different, authentic Rogli\u010d. \u201cI really have nothing to prove to no one. I just want to come to Paris, take a champagne, smile, and we will see,\u201d he smiled.<\/p>\n

Testament to his laissez-faire attitude, he\u2019s not even checked the route in detail. \u201cWe probably have a meeting tomorrow so I\u2019ll see it then,\u201d he said, nonchalantly.<\/p>\n

But this is all not to say that Rogli\u010d is giving in from kilometre one. He\u2019s too much of a competitor for that. \u201cWe\u2019re all starting from zero, we\u2019re all just saying something hypothetically. We of course fight for every second. I don\u2019t expect Jonas or Tadej to push me up mountains, but the guys are strong. I only have to do my best.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always definitely tried to do everything, to be able to come here as good as possible. How good it will be [this year] we will figure out sooner or later. But of course, being who I am, it\u2019s always my dream to fight, to work and to do my best. Every athlete has the mindset to be the best. And in the end the place you get is what you deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d is used to being chilled, projecting a nonchalant persona. Cool, calm and collected is a phrase…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-236886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114793910662769443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}