I’ve been a Roglic fan since before the 2020 Tour, and his acceptance of disappointment after that Planche time trial solidified it in my emotions.
Now I’m accepting the sad realization that I’ll probably never see him dominate a race again. Apart from crashing, I think there’s a good chance he could have won this year’s Giro, based on being the best GC Rider in both time trials, although being a bit off the pace in the first climbing stage (won by Ayuso) also came before crash damage, I think. Catalunya this year had been promising, basically draw with Ayuso stage wins and bonifications, and then he just stomped everyone on the final stage despite it not cleanly fitting his biggest advantage characteristics.
But time comes for everyone, and 2023 may have been his last peak year, and 2024 may have been his last chance to podium the Tour, coming with a theoretically better lead-in than the other three podium contenders had. And he looked pretty good going for it, testing his performance limits on stage 11 (optimizing to win, not just podium), before that ugly crash on stage 12 knocked him out. He was still obviously the class of the field at the Vuelta, apparently setting his best ever climbing performance (although with everyone improving, it probably wasn’t his best ever level in relative terms).
Now at this year’s TdF he’s no longer anywhere near fighting at the front, talking about not giving a f***, etc. Maybe it’s strategic and best optimizing his chances of ending up on the podium (accepting that he can’t win), but it more feels like his decline has started to set in, and he doesn’t find just-trying-to-podium motivating if he can’t fight for the win.
Now I look back on his career, wishing he’d gone for Tour in 2019 (in retrospect a fairly weak podium). But apart from Le Tour and that pesky Suisse (joke, I don’t think he ever rode it), he’s had a great career and I’ve enjoyed pulling for him.
The detail that stands out in my mind is how Pogacar couldn’t drop Roglic on the final San Luca climb at Giro dell’Emilia in 2023
, and then Roglic totally stomped the finish sprint and won with a time-gap. Which made him nearly a co-favorite with Pog for Lombardia, although Pog took that comfortably enough.
Here’s wishing him joy at whatever he spends his time on in the future (continued fighting for wins in weaker fields, or more likely in my mind, an opposite-of-Froome hard pivot to retirement and becoming a sage Slovenian farmer.
