By winning, Sunday, September 5, a third Vuelta in a row, the Slovenian Primoz Roglic entered the pantheon of the last Grand Tour of the season. The Slovenian from the Jumbo-Visma even offered himself the luxury of concluding his three Iberian weeks with a fourth stage victory at the end of the 33.8 km time trial in the streets of Saint-Jacques- de-Compostela, assuming its status as recent Olympic champion in the specialty. Overall, Roglic is ahead of his runner-up, Spaniard Enric Mas (Movistar), by 4 minutes and 42 seconds.
With this third crowning on the Vuelta, the leader of the Dutch team joins in the number of victories the Spaniard Alberto Contador and the Swiss Tony Rominger, just behind the Spaniard Roberto Heras and his four coronations. Ironically, Roglic’s sporting trajectory is not without echoing that of the Swiss runner: two men whose professional careers started late – Tony Rominger at 25, the former ski jumping champion at 27 years old.
Above all, if they chain successes on the Iberian Peninsula, they pile up disappointments on the other side of the Pyrenees, on the Tour de France. With designated executioners: Miguel Indurain for the Swiss, and Tadej Pogacar for the Slovenian.
In 1993, Rominger finished the Grande Boucle with three stage victories and the polka dot jersey, but was satisfied with a final second place in Paris behind the Spaniard. The following year, exhausted, he left the race before the Alps. Indurain will be crowned again on the Champs-Elysées.
In 2020, Roglic lets slip the coronation that was promised to him during the stopwatch of the Planche-des-Belles-Filles, on the eve of the epilogue of the event. The revenge announced last July will again be thwarted by a retirement: injured in a fall during the 3e stage in Brittany, the Slovenian threw in the towel six days later, while his young compatriot Tadej Pogacar flew over the Tour. Like Rominger in his time, is Roglic doomed to shine in the shadow of his rival?
“He assumed his status”
At the end of this Vuelta 2021, however, it seems premature to bury the future hopes of the leader of the Jumbo-Visma. Because on the Spanish roads, the Slovenian has once again shown his solidity, his mastery and his consistency.
“The cycle race is a game of chess”, explained in 2017 the former Belgian rider Tom Steels, then sporting director of the Quick-Step team. Thus, if from the inaugural stage, Roglic set the tone, we had to wait for the outcome of the 17e step, the 1er September, when the Slovenian won alone at the top of the Covadonga lakes, to see the white smoke of this “Vuelta des cathedrales”.
Sixty kilometers earlier, he had then followed the attack of Colombian Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers), before dropping him 7.5 kilometers from the finish. “I hurt myself, didn’t get the result I wanted, but I’m proud of what I did. I had nothing to lose and Roglic a lot. But he assumed his status ”, will greet the child of Zipaquira, once the line crossed.
This victory allowed the leader of the Jumbo-Visma to recover the red jersey which had escaped him a week earlier for the benefit of the Norwegian Odd Christian Eiking (Intermarché – Wanty-Gobert), after a fall in a descent while he was trying to attack during the 10e stopover in Rincon de la Victoria.
“I feel him sure of his strength, very calm, equal to himself. We must not kid ourselves: [Roglic] only lost the jersey because he himself decided it was deliberate ”, warned Guillaume Martin (Cofidis, Credit Solutions), questioned by The team before the departure of the 17e stage. Eiking dolphin in the general classification during these seven days, the Frenchman finished this Vuelta 9e at 20 min 26.
The Slovenian and his team had already let slip the precious leader’s tunic in the general classification for the first time: the Estonian Rein Taaramäe (Intermarché – Wanty-Gobert) had seized it with their tacit agreement at the end of the 3e stage. ” The fact that we lost the jersey is actually good for us ”, had declared the person concerned on arrival at the top of Picon Blanco.
“In the general classification, we are where we want to be, then abounded Grischa Niermann, sporting director of the Jumbo-Visma on this Vuelta. If we wanted to defend the jersey, we would have. Primoz has accepted that we abandon him. ”
“He is really very strong”
Winner of the Giro this year, Egan Bernal was announced as his most serious rival, he who had bypassed the Tour de France – which he had won in 2019 – to try to claim the last missing Grand Tour. to his record. And he could boast of an impressive collective: the winner of the 2019 Giro and very recent Olympic champion, Richard Carapaz; the 4e of the Tour de France 2016, Adam Yates, or the new Thomas Pidcock nugget.
As during the Great Loop, Ineos-Grenadiers left Spain without any victory to his credit, contenting himself with the 4e and 6e places in the general of Yates (9:06) and Bernal (13:27) – the latter even losing his white jersey of best youngster.
The British formation is however at the origin of the psychodrama which marred the end of the “Home tour” of Movistar training. Trapped by the strategy of the Ineos-Grenadiers, Miguel Angel Lopez gave up his third place overall to the Australian Jack Haig (Bahrain-Victorious, 7 min 39) at the end of the penultimate stage, Saturday. Furious, the Colombian gave up before the finish. Lopez had yet signed the only victory for the Spanish team in this Vuelta, winning, on September 2, solo in the queen stage at the top of the unprecedented altu of El Gamoniteiru (14.6 km to 9 , 8%).
” Roglic has proven to be really strong, he then summed up on arrival. The last time trial is for him and we have to accept it. It is not defeatism. For me, Roglic is unbeatable. ” It now remains for the Slovenian to prove that this assertion is not confined to the roads of Spain, unlike the comparison with Rominger.