Primož Roglič playing Tour de France long game, is optimistic despite third time loss to race leader Tadej Pogačar

Primož Roglič lost another chunk of time to Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogačar in the Cote d’Or time trial on stage 7 of the Tour de France, but he and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team tried to stay optimistic and focused on their long game, convinced that a lot more intense racing ns bigger time gaps will emerge in the second and third weeks than they have so far in the first week.

Roglič lost 34 seconds to Evenepoel in the 25.3km time trial and 22 seconds to Tadej Pogačar. However, he gained three seconds on Jonas Vingegaard in the final part of the stage but, after losing 21 seconds on stage 2 and 35 seconds on stage 4 over the Col du Galibier, he remains fourth overall, now 1:36 down on Pogačar in the big-four GC battle of this year’s Tour de France.