In his first team time-trial with his new,
BORA - hansgrohe teammates,
Primoz Roglic lost some significant time as the team rolled home in 11th place, 54 seconds down.
In typically Roglic style however, the Slovenian wasn't getting too downhearted post-stage. "It is not my habit to make excuses," the 34-year-old says in conversation with Val 202. "It was wet and the wind came up, but that doesn't change the fact that we only had to go to the finish with three people. That wasn't enough to do what we wanted."
Having reached the intermediate check well placed, BORA faded quite dramatically in the second half. For sports director, Patxi Villa, the reasoning behind the drop-off is clear. “It was good to see such strong commitment by the whole team. Everyone gave 100 percent of what they had today. We did ok over the first flat part and climb, but on the second climb, potentially due to overexcitement, we overdid it somewhat,” he explains.
"We were second at the intermediate check, but we did the last part with three riders, which was not the plan, so we lost time there. Then we fought our way back in the best possible way. It’s not the scenario we expected this morning, and now we’ll work on a strategy to capture the time back that we lost today. The good thing is that we witnessed a strong team in the uphill sections, which gives us confidence for the upcoming tough stages,” Villa concludes.
