After drawing his time to a close at Jumbo-Visma with third place at Il Lombardia on Saturday, Primož Roglič has said he was already thinking about moving on from the Dutch team at the beginning of the 2023 season.
The Slovenian, who was second in the chase group 52 seconds behind winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) in Bergamo, is set for a move to Bora-Hansgrohe in 2024, his first new team since joining Jumbo-Visma in 2016.
His move was widely thought to have been motivated by the intra-team leadership controversy that hit the headlines at last month’s Vuelta a España, but the 33-year-old said that it was something he’d thought about much earlier in the year.
“It was already from the beginning of the year,” Roglič told La Gazzetta dello Sport after the finish of Il Lombardia. “I wasn’t really at this point let’s say in the Vuelta or whatever.”
“But really before building up I was thinking about my future, my responsibilities, the things I still want to achieve or to do. Then it was quite simple, eh?”
Roglič is set to join the likes of Aleksandr Vlasov, Jai Hindley, and Cian Uijtdebroeks at his new team, and will lead the squad at next July’s Tour de France.
There he’ll be aiming for the one Grand Tour victory that has so far eluded him, taking on soon-to-be former teammate, two-time Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard, as well as Pogačar.
He couldn’t sign off from his spell at Jumbo-Visma with an 81st career victory, though his podium spot in Bergamo comes off the back of two stage wins at the Vuelta and a second career victory at the recent Giro dell’Emilia.
“Satisfied,” he said of his ride in Lombardy, which saw Tadej Pogačar solo to victory from 31km out.
“It was the best at this moment. Maybe tomorrow or on some other day… But at that moment, I didn’t have the legs. I didn’t have it. Third place was my victory.”
Roglič said that he gave it his all on his final race day of 486 in Jumbo-Visma colours but didn’t have it in the legs to be able to beat his countryman as he had on the San Luca climb last weekend.
“Just the fact that I put everything on the road even more,” he said. “Because obviously, I didn’t have the legs. I was dropped all the time and I was just fighting, fighting, fighting to come back.
“Third place was the maximum I could reach today.”
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