Primož Roglič will travel to the Solden ski resort in Austria with his new Bora-Hansgrohe teammates this week to begin a new chapter in his career and plan his assault at the 2024 Tour de France.
Roglič spoke at length about his life and 2023 Giro d’Italia success at the Festival dello Sport in Italy at the weekend. Afterwards, he talked more specifically to Cyclingnews and La Gazzetta dello Sport about his move from Jumbo-Visma to Bora-Hansgrohe and his ambitions for 2024.
“I like new challenges and to have different things. Sometimes new things are better but you don’t know until you do it,” Roglič said, carefully choosing his words.
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“I’m leaving the best team of the year, so I don’t expect I’ll go to an even better team. We’ll see what the future brings.”
Roglič has already revealed that he began to think about a move away from Jumbo-Visma at the start of 2023. His victory at the Giro d'Italia left just the Tour de France missing from his palmares but with Jonas Vingegaard a two-time winner for Jumbo-Visma, Roglič realised he had to change teams if he wanted to target the Tour de France in the final years of his career.
When Jumbo-Visma began to work on the merger/takeover of Soudal-QuickStep during the later summer, Remco Evenepoel was expected to become a team leader and Jumbo-Visma decided to let Roglič leave.
Around the same time, the leadership rivalry emerged within the team at the Vuelta a España, with Roglič explaining that his responsibility as a team leader is to win races. He said in Trento that he could have attacked to overturn the result but was ultimately happy that Sepp Kuss won.
Bora-Hansgrohe team manager Ralph Denk realised during the Vuelta a España that Roglič was no longer happy at Jumbo-Visma and formulated an offer, keen to secure Roglič’s services.
Ineos Grenadiers and Lidl-Trek were also named as possible destinations but Bora-Hansgrohe quickly emerged as the best option for Roglič. The German team used some carefully saved budget to fund the deal, with Jumbo-Visma receiving a reported three million Euro to terminate Roglič’s existing contract. He will reportedly earn 5.5 million Euros per season at Bora-Hansgrohe in 2024 and 2025.
“It went quite fast in the end,” Roglič explained of his transfer to Bora-Hansgrohe.
“Of course, many teams were interested but perhaps not many of them could really do it. When we started talking with Bora-Hansgrohe, things went really fast and we found the good things in common really fast.
“There was the enthusiasm for what I’m searching to go for. That was enough for me.”
Roglič admitted in Trento that he cannot yet go on holiday and relax after a long 2023 season.
In Solden he will sit down with the team management and his coach Marc Lamberts, who also moves across from Jumbo-Visma, to plan his 2024 season and his assault at the Tour de France.
Roglič will also spend time with his new teammates and fellow team leaders Jai Hindley, Cian Uijtdebroeks, Aleksandr Vlasov and new signing Dani Martínez. Hindley and Uijtdebroeks could lead the German team at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, while Bora-Hansgrohe are expected to select a strong team to back Roglič at the Tour de France.
Roglič finished second in the 2020 Tour de France when Tadej Pogačar beat him in the final time trial but failed to finish in 2021 and 2022 due to crashes and injuries.
He knows it may take time for him to challenge for the Tour de France, with Pogačar, Vingegaard and Evenepoel likely to be his biggest rivals at the 2024 Grand Boucle, but it remains his ultimate goal.
“We’ve seen that a lot of different teams and a lot of different guys can compete for the best results,” Roglič said.
“We all know that things don’t happen overnight. When I started with Jumbo-Visma in 2016, we needed quite a while to get to the level needed to be the best. We’ll see. huh.”
Roglič won’t bang his hand on the table and demand team leadership at Bora-Hansgrohe for the Tour de France, that’s not his style.
However, he will surely be given special status in the team for the Tour de France and other stage races because he deserves it and his results prove he can win. In 2023 he won Tirreno-Adriatico, the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Burgos before accepting third place overall at the Vuelta a España when he was perhaps the strongest rider in the race.
“I hope for freedom in some of the races. We all say the Tour of course, and I want to go to Tour de France with the best support. I want to win races,” Roglič made clear.
“You can say I’m picky, but I really want to give it everything for some specific things. Whatever happens, I don’t want to have any regrets. If you don’t try, you’ll never know.”
