"It was hard to see Primoz Roglic lose time" - Team Visma | Lease a Bike send message of sympathy to former rider after Tour de France crash

Although Primoz Roglic no longer rides in the colours of Team Visma | Lease a Bike, the feeling between both parties remains strong. After the Slovenian, now at Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe, crashed late on stage 12 of the 2024 Tour de France, all but ruling himself out of Maillot Jaune contention, Visma shared a message of sympathy.

"I am relieved we were not involved in the big crash ten kilometres from the line. We were well in front as a team, so we could escape it," reflects Team Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Frans Maassen in his post-stage 12 comments to the team's official website. "Although it was hard to see Primoz Roglic lose time."

Losing more than two minutes as a result of his late crash, Roglic has now dropped down to 6th overall in the general classification, 4:42 down on the Maillot Jaune of Tadej Pogacar and 3:28 down to his former Team Visma | Lease a Bike teammate, Jonas Vingegaard, who currently holds the 3rd spot on the podium with 12 stages completed.

Maassen wasn't the only one to share a thought about the well liked Slovenian in his post-stage interview either. Among others both compatriot Pogacar and long time rival Remco Evenepoel commented on Roglic's crash in their own post-stage interviews.

“I only learned after the stage that Primoz Roglic has crashed. It was a nervous, hectic final, with lots of road furniture, so the racing was pretty fast coming into the last kilometres," Evenepoel assessed in his post-stage interview afterwards. "It sounds like a cliche, but us GC guys never have a day off in a stage race. What happened to Primoz today unfortunately underlines it."

“It was a stressful final already. I heard the big crash when it happened, with 12 kilometres to go, but it’s only at the finish that somebody told me that Primoz had gone down. It is really devastating," Pogacar reflected in his post-stage interview. "He was in very good shape already, and I could feel he was getting better and better with every stage. I’m pretty sure he would have been fighting for the GC in the next few days. It’s very sad that a crash has affected him. I hope that he is well, that he recovers quickly, and that he can fight back into contention."