ANALYSIS | Tadej Pogacar vs Primoz Roglic: Who is Slovenia's true flag-bearer?

Slovenia, a country in central Europe with just over 2 million inhabitants. A country where a lot of outdoor sports are practiced, but which has more of a history in winter sports, has today become a cycling superpower. All thanks to two names: Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic.

We have analyzed this topic in collaboration with CiclismoAtual. Just over 10 years ago, Slovenia was a nation with virtually no cycling record, but these two brilliant cyclists have surpassed everyone's expectations and are two of the biggest stars in cycling today. Just take a moment to reflect and you'll quickly realize that we're "only" talking about two cyclists who between them have won the 3 Grand Tours of 2024, a feat that had last been achieved by the United Kingdom in 2018 when Simon Yates won the Vuelta and the duo from the then reference team, Team Sky, won the Giro, Team Sky, won the Giro and the Tour with Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas respectively and in recent times also won in 2008 by the duo of Alberto Contador (Giro and Vuelta) and Carlos Sastre (Tour) and way back in 1964 with Jacques Anquetil (Giro and Tour) and Raymond Poulidor (Vuelta). Still, Slovenia has much less historical weight in cycling compared to Spain, France or the United Kingdom, which makes the feat achieved by these two men all the more impressive.

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Between Pogacar and Roglic we find only the winners of half of the Grand Tours in the last six years, as you can see below.

But are the Slovenians' highlights only in the Grand Tours?

Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic are two very complete cyclists. Their prominence goes beyond the Grand Tours.

Tadej Pogacar is a cyclist who is well-suited to one-day races that are very tough. At the age of 26, he has already won three of cycling's five monuments (Tour of Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia), a road World Championship and several one-day classics. At 34, Primoz Roglic has won an Olympic time trial title, a Liège-Bastogne-Liège and victories in practically every World Tour stage-race held in the first half of the year (with the exception of the Tour Down Under and the Tour de Suisse).

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So we're already beginning to feel some differences between the two Slovenian stars:

But which one is better? 

It's a difficult and unfair question to answer. While between Pogacar and Vingegaard we have many direct terms of comparison because they face each other every year in the Tour de France, the same cannot be said between Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic. 

The two have actually faced each other several times in Grand Tours, but Primoz Roglic has often failed to complete the Grand Tours he has taken part in. Primoz Roglic is an athlete who hasn't dedicated himself entirely to cycling throughout his career. Between the ages of 14 and 23, he was actually a ski jumper and even became the junior world team champion in 2007. Tadej Pogacar, on the other hand, competed from the age of 9 as a cyclist and first came to attention when he was racing locally and one day Andrej Hauptman (who is now sports director at UAE Team Emirates) was watching his race and ordered the organization to support Pogacar when he looked tired while racing against older kids, until the organization's staff told him that Pogacar was actually lapping everyone else. And the rest is history. Tadej Pogacar would go on to win the Tour de l'Avenir in 2018 before making the leap to the professional level in 2019.

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And here we have the first meeting between the two in 2019. Primoz Roglic was an athlete at the peak of his career and Tadej Pogacar was a youngster on the rise. Roglic was making a name for himself as a Grand Tour rider by winning his first (of 4) Vuelta a España, but the real surprise of the race was the young Tadej Pogacar, who won 3 stages and came 3rd just a few seconds behind the then World Champion Alejandro Valverde.

We were already beginning to see the first signs of what would be an epic battle in the 2020 Tour de France. In an edition marked by Covid-19 and held outside its traditional calendar, all the conditions were in place for a memorable edition of the Tour. The hardest part was being able to start the race at a time when there were many doubts about the safety of cyclists in the midst of the pandemic. We had a smaller Tour caravan, fewer spectators, much smaller technical areas and lots of masks distributed among all the participants, which even so failed to prevent the spread of the virus within the peloton, but the most important thing, the cyclists, were very much present and eager to put on a show.

Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic during the 2020 Tour de France

The story of the race would be a duel between Primoz Roglic and 2019 Tour winner Egan Bernal, backed by the two strongest teams in the peloton: Jumbo-Visma and INEOS. As the race wore on, Tadej Pogacar began to enter the fray after losing time following a puncture in the first week, and the most impressive thing was that he seemed to be doing it completely alone, given that his UAE Team Emirates had lost men like Fabio Aru and Davide Formolo during the race, without ever having any real support from his team in the decisive moments (which isn't quite true, because he had great support from Jan Polanc on the day he punctured). With the abandon of Egan Bernal a few stages from the finish, Primoz Roglic took over the lead and seemed to have the Tour victory in his pocket, until the unthinkable happened.

On stage 20, a time trial took the cyclists up the famous Planche des Belles Filles. "Nobody can win alone," said Jumbo-Visma director Richard Plugge, praising the fantastic collective work of a team that included the likes of Tom Dumoulin, Tony Martin, Sepp Kuss and Wout van Aert. But isn't that exactly what Pogacar did? On a day that nothing could have predicted, Pogacar made an epic comeback on the penultimate stage and, at the age of 20, won his first Tour de France. This victory was a turning point in Pogacar's career, catapulting him forever as a star of world cycling, and a trauma for Primoz Roglic, who has never managed to finish a Tour de France since. Today, even the Slovenians do not forgive Tadej Pogacar for having "stolen" the victory from Primoz Roglic on that historic day.

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Historic year 2024

Years later, we never really saw another confrontation between the two. And as time went by we saw Primoz Roglic take a secondary role within Jumbo-Visma, who found in Jonas Vingegaard a rider capable of matching and beating Tadej Pogacar. Meanwhile, Tadej Pogacar has taken his career to new heights, so that we can say that there is a domination before and after the 2020 Tour.

Through the renowned statistics website ProCyclingStats, we were able to obtain an illustration that clearly demonstrates the passing of the baton that confirms Primoz Roglic's dominance, the moment when the two begin to match each other and the subsequent shift to the Pogacar era. With age on Pogacar's side, we can expect the gap between the two to continue to widen over the next few years.

Pogacar (green) and Roglic (red) scores

One of the most noticeable points on the graph, however, is the big rise in the green line in 2024. This is very much due to Tadej Pogacar's historic season in 2024 where he achieved what can be considered the best season in cycling history and even with a Primoz Roglic at a high level after his move to Red Bull - BORA - Hansgrohe, his achievements look little compared to what the now 3-time winner of the Tour de France has done.

And we're not just talking about winning. The dominant and overwhelming way in which Pogacar won practically every race he entered marked (and in what a way) the entire 2024 season, something that Primoz Roglic didn't manage even at the peak of his career. From March to October. Pogacar won in every shape and form. Strade Bianche, Volta a Catalunya, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, World Championships and Il Lombardia among others. In none of these races did the Slovenian seem to be threatened by anyone and that's what sets him apart from the rest.

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Final verdict

Taking into account the achievements of both and the way in which each has made a mark on cycling. Tadej Pogacar has now surpassed Primoz Roglic's entire career and has left a very strong mark on cycling history, often being discussed as one of the greatest cyclists of all time. At 26, there seems to be no limit to what the Slovenian can achieve during the rest of his career. Primoz Roglic, on the other hand, shouldn't be overlooked because he was the one who paved the way for Pogacar today and was the first Slovenian ever to win a Grand Tour, as well as being the current record holder for Vuelta a España victories together with Roberto Heras, and he still has time to isolate himself in the lead.

We can only enjoy the brilliance of these two Slovenians for as long as we can. They both move the cycling world, so much so that the presence of Slovenian fans on the road is already becoming quite noticeable, especially in the Giro d'Italia due to its geographical proximity. The organization of the Giro itself has also recently invested in taking the race to Slovenian territory, which speaks volumes for the influence and impact that Pogacar and Roglic have within the world of cycling.

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