BORA - hansgrohe all-in for Primoz Roglic's Tour de France preparation: "It's crucial to establish that blind trust between the Tour team and Primoz"

Primoz Roglic signed with BORA - hansgrohe to win the Tour de France, and the German team is doing everything it can to adjust and prepare for that goal. This becomes clear from a talk one of the team's leaders recently had, including training camps, race mentality, creating trust and choosing race calendar.

"A Grand Tour is not only physically demanding but also mentally taxing. We aim for a strong team, both on the flat and in the mountains. However, we also need to be resilient during stressful situations," team DS Rolf Aldag told In de Leiderstrui. "It's crucial to establish that blind trust between the Tour team and Primoz. Building that trust before the Tour is incredibly important."

The Slovenian is healthy but once again starts his season in March only, with Paris-Nice. The reason why is because he finds himself to have great form without the need of racing, but also to get used to all the new material that he's racing with, and get used to his new teammates and the group that will assist him at the Tour de France. "We'll be taking the team to Teide (where they currently are), Sierra Nevada, and Tignes. I see it as a distinction between old and new cycling, and that's where our focus lies," Aldag adds.

"Still, I have some bad news for Primoz's family because he's going to spend a lot of time on a mountain or volcano. We discussed that right away. When Primoz goes to a race, he wants to be competitive. Altitude training helps with that, but you also have to consider recovery. We might want him to win in Valencia or Mallorca, but that's not our focus." The focus is very clear, the Tour de France.

"Our goal is to win the Tour. So we're not worried about meeting Remco Evenepoel, Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard, or any of the other top riders for the first time. We need to stay focused on that. Races like Catalunya and the Basque Country are irrelevant in that sense because our focus is solely on the Tour," the team DS says. Roglic will meet Evenepoel at Paris-Nice, both he and Jonas Vingegaard at both Itzulia Basque Country and the Criterium du Dauphiné.

The Tour de Suisse is known to be a plan for him, but not this year, as the team believes that would not be the ideal preparation ahead of the Grand Boucle. "That's also why we're skipping the Tour de Suisse; it's too close. While he really wants to win that race, it might not happen this year. I'd rather see him there as a Tour de France winner." He will of course have to contest with the very best stage-racers in the current peloton to achieve this, a task hard by all means.

This will also likely mean the support of the likes of Daniel Martínez, Lennard Kämna... But also ongoing team leaders such as Jai Hindley and Aleksandr Vlasov. "Primoz's arrival brings a sort of positive pressure for everyone. He's someone who has won several Grand Tours, and Jai and Aleks can also benefit from that. Additionally, Primoz isn't 24 anymore, so in that sense, you can also see it differently," he explains.

"And it's not as if they are merely servants now either. We also set individual goals for them. They will be participating in the Tour in support of Roglic, but we also need to adopt a tactical approach. We can afford to do so with riders who have finished fifth in the Tour or won the Giro. However, we shouldn't deceive anyone by claiming we're going with six leaders."