After six days of racing at Paris-Nice, 11th overall and 1:44 down on the race leader is not where Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) was expected to be as one of the two pre-race favourites alongside Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep).
His new team have worked on the front and the Slovenian has attacked, but without much success, leaving him way down on Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) in the yellow jersey and with only two stages left to reduce a big deficit.
There are no worries, however, internally for the German team and Roglič’s coach because they see him at a similar level to where he was this time in 2023, with the real test to come in July at the Tour de France.
“He was good, but not great,” said coach Marc Lamberts to HLN as reported in In De Leiderstrui of Roglič’s performance on stage 6, where he opened up the attacking but ultimately only managed ninth on the day.
“But purely based on his numbers, he is certainly at the same level as in recent years in this early season phase.”
Last year, Roglič opened up his season at Tirreno-Adriatico where he took overall victory and won three stages. But, his winning margin was slim at only 18 seconds from Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and it was his uphill sprint that won him that race with bonus seconds, not out-of-this-world climbing performances.
Head sports director Rolf Aldag also sees that Roglič making his season debut in Paris-Nice is playing a part in his GC position, whereas those performing better – such as Evenepoel – are already back used to racing after starting at the Volta ao Algarve.
“The first time back racing inevitably involves getting past that point where your lungs are on fire and you get a taste of blood in your throat,” Aldag said.
“Remco Evenepoel is already one step further in that respect. He clearly made his debut in the Algarve at a different starting point.
“Primoz is currently more or less keeping pace uphill. But it’s not like he has 25% surplus to say: ‘I’m going to get over him’. Fine and fair, we are at peace with that.”
Lamberts even believes the Slovenian is performing at levels he hasn’t seen before such as in the team time trial where, despite losing time to his rivals, Roglič himself looked very strong on the front of the Bora-Hansgrohe train.
“The fact that Roglic fared poorly in the team time trial is only an appearance,” Lamberts said. “About the best I’ve seen from Primoz over an effort of 32 minutes. Which shows…
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