“He becomes a scaredy-cat” – Wuyts rips into Primoz Roglic for Giro d’Italia performance

Primoz Roglic doesn’t like doing things the easy way, does he?

As the 2025 Giro d’Italia enters Stage 10, a time trial, the 2023 champion finds himself in familiar yet unwanted territory: chasing. After a chaotic Stage 9 on the gravel roads to Siena, Roglic sits tenth overall, over two minutes behind the pink jersey of Isaac Del Toro and a minute down on Juan Ayuso, his most obvious rival. Once again, the former Olympic time trial champion is in a hole. The question now is whether he can dig himself out.

Sunday’s gravel carnage was another nightmare to add to Roglic’s collection. Caught behind a crash, hitting the deck himself, then suffering a puncture, he was left scrambling as his general classification rivals surged ahead. It was not just a time loss, it was a blow to rhythm, morale, and perhaps faith.

On HLN’s Wuyts & Vlaeminck podcast, the setback prompted an uncomfortable reflection. “Have you ever seen Roglic successfully fight back from a seemingly lost position?” veteran commentator Michel Wuyts asked. “Roglic has always acted, certainly in the four Vuelta’s he won, from a top position. But fight back, counter in other words; I have never seen him do that.”

It’s a provocative question, and one with some basis in Roglic’s Grand Tour record. His Vuelta triumphs were often about control rather than comeback, but that is not true in the sense of last year. Wuyts seems to forget that in 2024, Roglic won the Vuelta after losing 5 minutes to Ben O’Connor early on.

However, his infamous 2020 Tour de France defeat, when Tadej Pogacar dethroned him in the final time trial, lingers as a psychological scar. The 2023 Giro, which he won, came after a long duel with Geraint Thomas but crucially saw Roglic surge on the penultimate stage when he was just seconds down, not minutes.

Sunday’s drama was different. This was not a measured race of attrition; it was a rupture. “It was kind of written in the stars that he would have bad luck again in an important stage,” said Belgium’s national coach Serge Pauwels. And once again, it seemed to happen when the stakes were highest, as it did on the cobbles in the Tour in 2022.

Wuyts was blunt in his assessment of Roglic’s body language, “Then he becomes a scaredy-cat. You can see that in his posture on his bike. His legs are a bit further apart. He looks to the left, to the right. The uncertainty, it's all over him. He's a tough guy, isn’t he.”

That duality is part of what makes Roglic such a compelling, and at times enigmatic, rider. Nobody questions his ability to power on through setback. His Olympic title, his Vuelta dominance, and his consistency all speak to an elite champion, but there remains a sense that when the script veers off course, he struggles to improvise.

Today’s time trial offers a controlled environment. No gravel. No crashes. No chaos… in theory. It’s a chance for Roglic to assert himself again, to claw back time, to reframe the Giro. But he won’t be racing against shadows, as Del Toro, 21, may be young but has shown no sign of fading yet, and Ayuso is consistent and dangerous.

And Roglic’s own Red Bull team looked slightly ragged in Stage 9, relying almost solely on Giulio Pellizzari for support. Are they missing Jai Hindley already?

Whilst Wuyts is wrong that Roglic can only win grand tours when he is defending a lead, this does seem like an uphill challenge. But, he can get the ball rolling today with a strong time trial, and he will be confident of doing so after his strong TT on stage 2.