Primoz Roglic shares the record for most victories with Roberto Heras after his fourth final victory in the Vuelta a Espana. However, the Slovenian is not making a big goal of a fifth victory, thinks his trainer Marc Lamberts.
“There are two other goals in his head”, says the Belgian. “First of all: try to win the Tour of course. Even though he starts to realize that it will probably never happen, that doesn’t mean he won’t want to keep fighting for it for the next two years.”
Roglic came very close to winning the Tour in 2020, but lost the yellow jersey to his compatriot Tadej Pogacar on the penultimate day. He never finished the Tour de France after that. In his participations in 2021, 2022 and 2024, a crash always threw a spanner in the works.
And the second goal? “Winning the Tour de Suisse,” says Lamberts. “Then Primoz will have ticked off all the major one-week stage races at WorldTour level. I think he will definitely want to work on that next season, although he recently told me that he also wants to ride all three Grand Tours in one season and the Tour de Suisse does not fit in with that…”
“But even if those two or three remaining goals do not work out, he can already say that he has had a phenomenal career, especially knowing that he is a late bloomer and has also had a lot of bad luck.”
Lamberts also talked extensively about the past Vuelta. He was very impressed by the power that his rider delivered.
“This Vuelta is one of his best performances ever, if not the best”, he says.
And that after a difficult preparation. Roglic broke a vertebra in a crash during the Tour de France.
“After he gave up, he stayed off the bike for one week and went to the Red Bull Performance centre in Salzburg for three days of rehabilitation, where they treated him intensively. We then thought about ending his season, but we got the approval of the orthopedists and doctors that he could ride, but with pain.”
“We then rushed to Tignes for three weeks of altitude training, but in the first week there was no intensity, due to the traction on that transverse process. Only in the second and third week of the altitude training was he able to complete ‘high intensity interval’ training. In total, we were able to complete three weeks of 28 to 30 hours during that altitude training camp, but always with pain. That pain did not go away during the Vuelta either, but it became bearable to be able to perform.”
