“With the Primož [Roglič] stuff, I’ve now got to the point where I just stop looking because it got too much. Regardless if it’s positive or negative it’s just a lot of people talking like they are experts of cycling. It’s almost like when I listen to my mates talk about what football players should have done, they don’t really know. That whole thing was big news, that was mad.”
Without me even having to mention it, my conversation with Fred Wright moves quickly on to the topic of that Primož Roglič incident. If you don’t know what I’m referencing, then, really, where have you been?
For those who may make the – arguably – wise decision of staying away from social media, this is the situation in summary: on stage 16 of the 2022 Vuelta a España, a group of five riders broke away from the peloton on a small rise on the final run-in to the finish line. It was Roglič, who then lay second overall on the general classification, who ignited the move, aiming to put time into red jersey wearer Remco Evenepoel.
As Roglič attacked, Evenepoel punctured and had to wait for his team car to get a wheel change (that’s a whole other controversy in itself), but since the mishap happened inside three kilometres to go, Evenepoel would be given the same time as the main peloton.
Still Roglič, and the four riders who could follow him when he launched his attack (Mads Pedersen, Fred Wright, Danny van Poppel and Pascal Ackermann), pushed on towards the line, fighting for a stage win, and, in Roglič’s case, a time advantage on the main bunch that chased behind.
As our leading five approached the few hundred metres of the stage, the Slovenian rider riding hard was on the front, doing what many thought was sacrificing the stage win to gain as much time on general classification. As the line got closer, though, Roglič appeared to change his mind about not going for stage victory and drifted across to the other side of the road towards the other four sprinting riders. As he did so, he collided with Wright, and hit the tarmac in what was a dramatic and high-speed crash. Wright stayed up and finished the stage in fourth place, but Roglič was too injured to continue and left the race that day.
Primož Roglič crosses the line after the crash on stage 16 (Image: Charly Lopez/ASO)
“Initially when it all happened, there was nothing from it,” Wright tells me a few days after the Vuelta has finished in Madrid. He’s now at home in…