Primož Roglič lost another chunk of time to Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogačar in the Cote d'Or time trial on stage 7 of the Tour de France, but he and his Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team tried to stay optimistic and focused on their long game, convinced that a lot more intense racing ns bigger time gaps will emerge in the second and third weeks than they have so far in the first week.
Roglič lost 34 seconds to Evenepoel in the 25.3km time trial and 22 seconds to Tadej Pogačar. However, he gained three seconds on Jonas Vingegaard in the final part of the stage but, after losing 21 seconds on stage 2 and 35 seconds on stage 4 over the Col du Galibier, he remains fourth overall, now 1:36 down on Pogačar in the big-four GC battle of this year's Tour de France.
"It wasn't a good sign that I started off the first of the favourites because they are currently a bit better. But I'm optimistic, I'm happy. We go forward," Roglič said briefly after riding through the small and packed finish area in the wine village of Gevrey-Chambertin.
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"I did everything I could, so I'm really happy with the performance I put out there. We can be optimistic, it's a long time since I've done such a hard stage seven in the Tour," he added, hinting that he hopes to build into the race.
Head Sport Director Rolf Aldag was detailed in his explanation of the stage but equally as optimistic.
"I think it was a more than OK TT performance," Aldag told Cyclingnews and the Cycling Podcast as Roglič warmed down on the rollers nearby.
"It took him a bit of time to get up to speed but in the second half, he was super good. It's humanly impossible to descend faster than he did, he pushed the physics to the limits and then he finished well. The time gap is starting to look serious with Roglič 1:36 down but Aldag minimised the deficit.
"But that will not be decisive when we finish in Nice. There's still a long way to go," the veteran German directeur sportif argued.
"Looking at how the Tour route is designed, we won't worry too much about it."
Roglič appears happy to let Pogačar and Evenepoel hog the spotlight and let Vingegaard slowly cook as he makes his return from his crash injuries. Roglič and Red Bull are playing a long game.
"We will fight with them when we have to fight. But until now there wasn't really too much to fight for. It was more about avoiding problems. Everything is still relatively close, with lots of questions.
"If you go person by person, how much base does Jonas have or not? How is he going go? Is Remco going to have his usual bad day in a Grand Tour or not? How does Pogačar cope with riding the Giro and the Tour? We just don't know yet.
"We'll just do our thing. We try to be stable. And we know it's going to be a really, really hard final of the Tour de France. We want to stay in contention. And for sure, if there's a chance for us to reach out for the yellow jersey, we will not hesitate."
After the time trial, the next key stage or Roglič is Sunday's stage 9 gravel challenge. It could be his hardest test yet.
"Though I'm not even quite sure if that is a test, or if it's just a gamble. I would call it the next gamble because I'm not really in favour of that," Aldag said, summing up the sentiment at Red Bull and with Roglič of the risk of racing on gravel.
