'It's not just hope, he will be ready' – Can Primož Roglič find Grand Tour redemption once again at the Tour de France?

Primož Roglič has not finished a Tour de France since his heart was broken and the yellow jersey was snatched from his shoulders on the slopes of the Planches des Belles Filles by Tadej Pogačar in 2020.

Since that memorable day, Roglič's GC record at the Tour reads: DNF, DNF and DNF, missing it in 2023 as he skipped participation altogether, and won the Giro and podiumed the Vuelta instead. In fact, he's abandoned more than half of the last nine Grand Tours he's raced, having finished all of his first seven appearances at cycling's iconic three-week races.

Crashes, bad luck, injuries and comebacks have long been the story of Roglič's illustrious sporting career. After all, his transition away from ski jumping to cycling was catalysed after a horror crash in Planica, and the three latest of his five Grand Tour triumphs have come off the back of abandoning the GT prior due to crashes.

History repeats itself as the 2025 Tour de France looms large. Roglič will once again have to mount a comeback off the back of his recent Giro d'Italia failure, where several crashes in the first two weeks saw him forced to climb off the bike and regretfully leave the race in a team car. Déjà vu once more.

It's something that Roglič himself was joking about as early as December last year, admitting at training camp that: "Normally I always finish off with with Vuelta. So it's better if I start now with the Giro, and then I still have two more afterwards", two more chances for any required redemption.

It was typical Roglič humour, but crashing out of the Giro brings an unfortunate truth to his words, and could now mean that his now-traditional Vuelta-style comeback arrives two months earlier at the Tour. But the competition in July is much harder, and he has even more war wounds than he did six months ago.

So why, after this never-ending rollercoaster of emotions and cycle of successes and failures, do Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe continue to believe in their man? Not forgetting that he's got the best rider since the established G.O.A.T., Eddy Merckx, Pogačar, and the only man to ever beat the Slovenian at the Tour, Jonas Vingegaard, to contend with.

The answer, according to his team's Chief of Sports, is the human factor.

'A chance for errors and for outstanding performances'

If you pit the four main GC riders for the Tour against each other in equal conditions and tested only their watts per kilo, VAM, VO2 max, any metric, the current favourite, based on everything we've seen for the past season and a half, would be Pogačar.

But the Tour is far from that straightforward, with 21 days of chaos, splits, crashes, injuries, team tactics, and a whole other host of variables all playing a part in the frantic fight for the yellow jersey, where a year's build-up of training can disappear into dust in a flash, just ask Roglič. Bike races are won on roads by humans, not on paper by pens or on a graph by a computer.

"Certainly we believe in him, and certainly we think it's realistic he can bounce back again, because it is like that: when something went wrong, he comes back better, that's his nature," Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe Chief of Sports Rolf Aldag tells Cyclingnews, speaking eight days before the Tour's start.

"That's his normal behaviour, and we do hope that it happens at the Tour. But it's not just only hope. It's also looking at data, looking at numbers – he will be ready. Therefore, we absolutely do not see a reason not to be optimistic about the Tour de France with him.

"We have to play it smart, and like everybody else, we have to avoid crashing with all our riders. How do we do that? Stay together as a team. Work as a team. Be prepared, know the course, and even then, still things can happen, but I do believe we can't be prepared better than we are this year."

On the matter of realism, Aldag too points out how just two years ago, the seemingly now invincible Pogačar was the one in real strife, exclaiming "I'm gone, I'm dead" over the radio on the lower slopes of the Col de la Loze, as Vingegaard rode to dominant victory. Tides can change quickly at the Tour de France, and Roglič will be primed to pounce.

"It's not Zwifting, isn't it? Where only numbers count, you're on a virtual trainer, and if you push 50 watts more, you will be ahead of the other one – it's not that. And we know what can happen because we've seen it multiple times now to Primož," says Aldag.

"We're not hoping for anything bad to happen, but we remember when Tadej ran completely out of energy, and there was the scene when you hear him on the microphone completely done, losing minutes and minutes.

"What gives us a realistic perspective is that we deal with humans, not with robots. If we just say Primož, Tadej, Jonas, and Remco are machines, well, it would be pretty predictable and you would know the outcome… But they're not, so dealing with humans always leaves a chance for errors and for outstanding performances as well."

Where is he at after the Giro d'Italia setback?

If Roglič is to return as one of the main protagonists and pounce on an opportunity that presents itself to him, however, he will still need to be at a level that was largely unseen throughout the 16 days he did race the Giro. That comes after his crashes and time on antibiotics before altitude camp, as well.

But Aldag assured that his leader for the Tour is at least already in the shape which carried him to another classic Roglič comeback win at last year's Vuelta a España. Such is the advancement of cycling year on year, there are no certainties as to how this matches him up against Pogačar and Vingegaard, but their levels are out of Red Bull's control.

In any case, Roglič's shortened Giro and subsequent recovery "shouldn't be performance limiting to him" for the Tour, according to Aldag, but he was "a little bit beaten up" having hit the deck on four occasions.

"If you compare [his Tour build-up] to last year's Vuelta, it's pretty similar. So if the outcome would be the same, we would all be very happy. That is Primož, isn't it: 'Okay, I'm beaten down, but I'm standing up and I fight back and find my balance'," says Aldag.

"Time at altitude, he really enjoys, and I do think the focus and the condition is there. But of course, first you have to overcome every disappointment in your career, and then you can move on in life – he's pretty good at that. I think we are all very confident that he's in the needed shape for the Tour, mentally and physically.

"We always talk about how quickly the sport develops, and we all don't know what the level of the direct competitors is. That's the interesting part, isn't it, that the level of someone who finished on the podium at the Tour de France five years ago, will have difficulties finishing in the top 10 now. The only thing we have influence over is our own preparation, and Primož's level is absolutely up there.

"He knows the challenges of the Tour de France, obviously, of a Grand Tour, obviously, and we know that the Tour will be decided in the high mountains, and that's what he trained for. So we do think that he will absolutely be on that level of the Vuelta."

Aldag describes Roglič's resilience as part of "his spirit", and that the laid-back rider who has long been saying 'You win some, you lose some' as his post-race analysis into interviewer's microphones is true to how the 35-year-old genuinely processes his failures.

How does he get over the setbacks? "Well, he probably lives his spirit, what you guys always get in your interviews: 'Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose, and you never know' I do think he lives that attitude," says Aldag to Cyclingnews.

"There are good times and bad times, and let's move on in life. Obviously, it's not really getting easier, but I do think he's still capable of doing that, to just draw a line and say, 'You can't change the past, but you can influence the future.'

"So train harder, get even better prepared and and be ready. Then you can't change it really, you're at the start line with all the rest, and then you try to do the best. Obviously, it's an ongoing learning process for everybody, but I feel like he trusts the team, and the team believes in his abilities, and that's how we move forward."

Out of the spotlight

While Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel all got back to racing at the Critérium du Dauphiné in June, Roglič has been allowed some time out of cycling's spotlight. His rivals all had their respective forms hyperanalysed over eight days of racing, but the Tour's opening stage in Lille will be Roglič's first race day since May 27.

Bookies are rating him out of the top four favourites, behind last year's Tour podium and Pogačar's teammate João Almeida. Is Roglič being underrated? Aldag doesn't particularly mind if so, and Roglič, of course, won't be taking notice of such things, with both aware that his competitors certainly won't be underestimating his Grand Tour abilities.

"Oh, that's fine for me [if he's underrated], we can live with that, definitely," says Aldag with a smile. "We've seen Tadej Pogačar and what he has done so far this season, that's pretty impressive, and you know who is the clear favorite – we don't really have to discuss it.

"I do think that we go along with that, but there are always opportunities and chances. And why would people underrate Primož? I think within the bunch, they definitely won't do that. Would they allow him to go into an early breakaway and give him five minutes?

"I would be very surprised if there is not a super hectic response and panic in the bunch, which also means he cannot just completely change his riding style, because there will always be an alert going off if he goes aggressive and offensive.

"He's still in that range of favorites, and I do think that's how the race will unfold. For him as well, to see what he, Remco, Jonas, and Tadej can do, see how they fight it out, that's going to be what I see as a big fight there."

No longer a 22-year-old rockstar

Amid his lack of limelight, Roglič has been back in his beloved Tignes, doing the final tuning for the Tour as he has done many times in the Alps, but with Red Bull's new individualised approach, he's largely been without many riders for company.

Some of the German team's eight have raced longer into the Tour de Suisse and National Championships, while others spent time with loved ones. Roglič himself mixed training at altitude, but only with a number of team staff and then his family.

"It feels like there are a lot of people being there with him, but not riders. We have the physio there, the chef, the nutritionist, and his coach, and like I say, he does enjoy doing his thing," adds Aldag.

"Then his family, they also joined him there, so that's important to him as well. He's just not the 22-year-old anymore who lives the life of a rockstar; he's a family person. I do think that's also important, and then not to divide or interrupt the whole system and make him say, 'Well, what do I do now? Do I hang out with my teammates? Do I spend time with my family?'

"We absolutely didn't leave him alone as a team. We were kind of like always there for him, with all the needs, and as I said, people were coming in and out, so I think we had up to six members of staff to look after him."

This individualised approach from Red Bull should see Roglič and his seven teammates to "arrive at the tour, mentally much fresher," according to Aldag, who does concede: "How long that lasts with that start of the Tour, we will see, because it's, it's going to be really draining on the brains."

A team of protectors to ensure he reaches the mountains

The opening 10 days of the 2025 race are filled with flat and punchy finishes, and are no doubt set to wreak havoc in a 184-rider peloton who all want to fight for the front position.

With Roglič's history, avoiding a major crash before Bastille Day and the first mountain stage to Le Mont Dore will be essential, prompting Aldag and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe to select a squad with only two pure climbers in support, Florian Lipowitz and Aleksandr Vlasov, several Classics specialists, and a sprinter in Jordi Meeus.

It will nervy watching for all those who fly the flag for Roglič, especially with last year's abandon and another from the Giro still fresh on the mind. Should he make it to the second and third weeks, last year's Vuelta suggests the 35-year-old can still grow into a three-weeker; the Tour just hasn't witnessed it for years.

But Red Bull's move out of the spotlight from the top three favourites has allowed them to pick such a team, knowing full well that the main mountain stages will be controlled by UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Visma-Lease a Bike.

"You have to take into account what we've seen now from UAE and Visma, what they do on climbing stages, it makes us feel like it's not up to us to control the race," says Chief of Sports Aldag. "But if we do have a solid Lipowitz and Vlasov and if they can be there in a group of 20, then what else do you need?

"You stay there, you follow there. Do not forget that Primož does have a kick, which Jonas and Tadej also have, but I don't really see that we would pull on the second last climb, trying to make it super hard and then keep the speed. I do think there are two teams that are able to do that, who are willing to do that.

"We need to be sure we get to these final mountain stages and summit finishes, where if we do, then the legs will talk, and then we see where we're at, but we need to get there. That is a big task for everybody, but especially also for us, to get through the first days."

Primož Roglič can not be counted out for this year's Tour de France. His team knows that his rivals, too, will know that, but he has to avoid the casino of the Tour and stay clear of more crash-borne heartbreak.

It's been five years since the Slovenian last made it to Paris, will 2025 be the year he returns to the Champs-Élysées? He'll need to muster his biggest Grand Tour bounce back yet if to stand any chance.

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