Jumbo-Visma manager Richard Plugge has confirmed that he has granted Primož Roglič’s request to leave the team at the end of this season.
Before the start of the Giro dell’Emilia on Saturday, Roglič revealed that he would depart Jumbo-Visma after the current campaign. Ineos and Bora-Hansgrohe are understood to be his most likely destinations.
Roglič has a contract with Jumbo-Visma until the end of 2024 and Plugge had recently dismissed the idea that the Slovenian would move elsewhere, repeatedly describing him as the team’s “king.”
Plugge reached for the same description on Saturday when he confirmed Roglič’s imminent exit from the team after eight seasons in their colours, a spell that saw him win the Vuelta a España three times and claim overall victory at this year’s Giro d’Italia.
“Primož will always be in my heart as our king,” Plugge said in a statement released by Jumbo-Visma. “We are very grateful to him for finding the way to the top together. I will always admire him on a personal level.
“But there comes a time when it is best to part ways. Recently, he asked for a transfer. We understood his request, and we have too much respect for each other to stand in each other's way. We gave him the green light, just like we did with Dylan Groenewegen.”
Like Roglič, Groenewegen departed Jumbo-Visma by mutual agreement before the end of his contract, joining Jayco ahead of the 2022 season.
After winning this year’s Giro, Roglič missed the Tour de France, with Jumbo-Visma preferring to hand sole leadership to Jonas Vingegaard, who successfully defended his title in Paris. Vingegaard’s presence has clearly limited Roglič’s prospects of regaining leadership of Jumbo-Visma’s Tour team, while the emergence of Vuelta a España winner Sepp Kuss as a GC contender and the possible arrival of Remco Evenepoel in the proposed a merger with Soudal-QuickStep only heightened the internal competition.
Soudal-QuickStep manager Patrick Lefevere told Het Nieuwsblad this weekend that there would be “much more clarity” about the potential merger by Monday. Roglič, meanwhile, intimated that he would not reveal his new team until after he completes his season at Il Lombardia next weekend.
“I can just definitely confirm that I will leave the team, but we want to tell all the details to where after the races that I do,” Roglič said at the start of the Giro dell’Emilia, which he went on to win ahead of compatriot Tadej Pogačar.
