"Being lighter doesn't mean you're a better cyclist" - Thijs Zonneveld believes Primoz Roglic has become too skinny for his own good

Of the big four, it seems that it is Primoz Roglic who has drawn the shortest match in the first week of Tour de France. The Slovenian four-time Grand tour winner made a much discussed move from Visma | Lease a Bike to Bora - hansgrohe (now Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe) last winter and half a year later, it seems like some things still need to click.

It's not the first time in 2024 that doubts about Roglic's level arise. Journalist Thijs Zonneveld already noticed things were slightly different at Critérium du Dauphiné. Roglic managed to win the race only with a great effort after not being able to follow Matteo Jorgenson on the final stage. "We talked about Roglic being so sharp, so thin, in the Dauphiné," Zonneveld says in his In het Wiel podcast.

Within his old team Team Visma | Lease a Bike, that will not have come as a surprise. "I also understood afterwards that at Visma they had to protect Roglic from losing another kilo. That they said: we are not going to do that. You have to keep eating this and that to maintain this weight. Roglic often wanted to lose a kilo."

At BORA-hansgrohe they might have done it differently. "It seems that they did succeed at Bora. And maybe he's even lighter. But that doesn't mean you're a better cyclist. In the past, we all thought that everything would be fine if you just became lighter, but today's cycling also requires explosiveness. You have to have that in you. I can actually see that going wrong quickly with Roglic. I think it's a risk."