"Primoz is very good, and nothing says that he is in decline" - Red Bull - BORA have no age concerns over Red Jersey winning Roglic

Before the end of this year, Primoz Roglic will be turning 35. Already one of the oldest ever Grand Tour winners, is time running out for the Slovenian to realise his dream and capture the Maillot Jaune at the Tour de France?

"Primoz is still a very ambitious cyclist and, in terms of his age, he started competing later than the rest (he was a ski jumper). For me, that is more important than the actual age,” explains an unconcerned Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe sports director Patxi Villa in conversation with AS. “Now that I have access and see his data, this Primoz is very good, and nothing says that he is in decline. Quite the opposite. I don't know if he has room to improve, but nothing says that he points to a decline or to getting worse.”

As proven over the last three weeks in Spain, Roglic is still more than capable of competing for Grand Tour wins as he picked up a record equalling 4th Red Jersey at the Vuelta a Espana, a 5th Grand Tour in the Slovenian's career. Using his experience, Roglic stage by stage, clawed back time on Ben O'Connor, who at one point had over five minutes' lead, timing his move into red on stage 19 to perfection.

“O'Connor had a great race since that sixth stage in Yunquera. It was quite tough, but we never lost our way of racing. Our objective was still the same and, I tell you the truth, we didn't change one millimetre," Vila says of Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe's plan at the 2024 Vuelta a Espana. "We would have raced the same if 0'Connor hadn't been ahead of us all those days.”

"Not working ourselves was the idea. It is true that O'Connor went a little longer than expected, but in the end we had everything in our favour. Stages 4 ( Pico Villuercas ) and 19 ( Moncalvillo ) are the two in which we used the team, and both ended in victory," Vila continues. "Many times you plan everything and then things happen to you (due to the virus that affected the team in the final days) and they end up exhausted as if they had thrown away the whole of La Vuelta, but Roger Adrià, on Picón Blanco, was able to make up for the shortcomings of the rest.”

“At the beginning of the race, the relationship was, I don't know if I should say difficult," concludes a delighted Vila. "But in the end we are so many new people that we all had to get up to date a bit to work together. We all contributed our grain of sand to this victory."