Primoz Roglic admits having had dark thoughts after abandoning Tour de France - "I don't need to be part of the cycling world anymore and suffer all this"

Primoz Roglic came agonizingly close to winning the 2020 Tour de France and every single year he's raced it again since, he's abandoned after crashes. This summer was no exception, falling several times in the second week and pulling out of the race that was his ultimate goal for the year. He admits he considered retiring from the sport after that.

"After all, I'm only human. And when what happened to me happened to me again, my thoughts went in the direction of what do I need, I don't need to be part of the cycling world anymore and suffer all this," Roglic said in an interview with Slovenian outlet Nedelo. "Even I only found out a few days later what kind of injury it was, that something was broken after all. At that time I had to take care of my health, I had to get to a state in which I felt fairly normal".

In 2021 he suffered from injuries until he couldn't continue the race; In 2022 he still supported Jonas Vingegaard but abandoned the race after fracturing vertebrae in a fall; and now in 2024 he crashed on stage 11 and then at high speed on stage 12... It wasn't reported until extensive tests weeks afterwards, but the Slovenian had fractured lower back vertebrae once again. But the speed at which he recovered and got back to his best form was impressive - not for the first time.

He returned to racing a the, and put on a wonderful ride to win his fourth Vuelta a España victory - equaling the record of Roberto Heras. But it was not easy to get himself back to the mental space to do so: "What followed was a look ahead and the realization that I never run out of new challenges. Of course I feel the pain, it's not pleasant."

"On the other hand, all these unpleasant events in my career, which I wished would not have happened to me, brought me also a lot of positive things. The support of my family and other loved ones, which I feel when picking up after falls, is exceptional," he admits. He used to to it's best, taking a few stage wins and a red jersey that will stand the test of time.

"Despite this support, it's not easy to pedal with pain, but this support makes it much easier for me to make decisions about how to proceed. So the decision to start the Vuelta again after another crash at the Tour was, in the end, quite easy," he concluded.