After six days of racing at Paris-Nice, 11th overall and 1:44 down on the race leader is not where Primož Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) was expected to be as one of the two pre-race favourites alongside Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep).
His new team have worked on the front and the Slovenian has attacked, but without much success, leaving him way down on Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) in the yellow jersey and with only two stages left to reduce a big deficit.
There are no worries, however, internally for the German team and Roglič’s coach because they see him at a similar level to where he was this time in 2023, with the real test to come in July at the Tour de France.
“He was good, but not great,” said coach Marc Lamberts to HLN as reported in In De Leiderstrui of Roglič’s performance on stage 6, where he opened up the attacking but ultimately only managed ninth on the day.
“But purely based on his numbers, he is certainly at the same level as in recent years in this early season phase.”
Last year, Roglič opened up his season at Tirreno-Adriatico where he took overall victory and won three stages. But, his winning margin was slim at only 18 seconds from Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates) and it was his uphill sprint that won him that race with bonus seconds, not out-of-this-world climbing performances.
Head sports director Rolf Aldag also sees that Roglič making his season debut in Paris-Nice is playing a part in his GC position, whereas those performing better - such as Evenepoel - are already back used to racing after starting at the Volta ao Algarve.
“The first time back racing inevitably involves getting past that point where your lungs are on fire and you get a taste of blood in your throat,” Aldag said.
“Remco Evenepoel is already one step further in that respect. He clearly made his debut in the Algarve at a different starting point.
“Primoz is currently more or less keeping pace uphill. But it's not like he has 25% surplus to say: 'I'm going to get over him'. Fine and fair, we are at peace with that.”
Lamberts even believes the Slovenian is performing at levels he hasn’t seen before such as in the team time trial where, despite losing time to his rivals, Roglič himself looked very strong on the front of the Bora-Hansgrohe train.
“The fact that Roglic fared poorly in the team time trial is only an appearance,” Lamberts said. “About the best I've seen from Primoz over an effort of 32 minutes. Which shows that he went fast and is definitely not bad.”
Roglič joined Bora-Hansgrohe in a huge transfer from then Jumbo-Visma at the end of 2023, with the clear goal of sole Tour de France leadership and a fresh approach after eight seasons at the Dutch side. With that comes a lot of new practices to get used to.
'Everything is new for him. Teammates, staff, equipment, nutrition on and off the bike... you don't acquire that with a simple snap of your fingers,” said Lamberts.
With two days left and a parcours that doesn't seem to suit Roglič too much on paper, a victory at Paris-Nice now looks unlikely, but everything Bora-Hansgrohe are doing is for the showdown in July with Evenepoel, two-time Tour winner and former teammate Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Slovenian compatriot Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates).
Lamberts and Aldag did admit, however, that “It won't be easy against Vingegaard, Pogacar and Evenepoel. We realize that. But we are going for it.”
It looks like an impossible task for Roglič to now win Paris-Nice for a second time, but the rest of the GC field would be foolish to count him out - even with his own team admitting the remaining route doesn't play to his strengths.
“Those two stages [7 and 8] don't suit him that well. On Saturday it is barely possible to make a difference with 2000m of altitude gain. And Sunday is more of a route for Classics riders,” Lamberts said.
“There he lost Paris-Nice in 2021. One year later he made it, but thanks to a strong Wout van Aert who, at 78 kilograms, performed better on those climbs. The bad weather does not play in Primož's favour either.”
