Visma and Vingegaard's tactics save Primoz Roglic's dream of winning Tour de France - "At my age you are too old to be nervous"

Stage 9 of the Tour de France turned out to be an all-time classic. Whilst almost the entire field of GC riders arrived to the finish line in Troyes together, in no way did that reflect the insane day of action from start to finish. Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar attacked Jonas Vingegaard and Team Visma | Lease a Bike countless times, but the Dutch team's defensive strategy kept the race together; and Primoz Roglic saved a day of a lot of tension.

“Of course my experience helps. At my age you are too old to be nervous. I mean: you have to stay calm. And everyone did a great job. The stage is behind us now, now we have to look ahead to the next stages," Roglic said in words to FloBikes. “I once started cycling on the road. Now we sometimes do cobblestones, sometimes even gravel. There are always new experiences. It is nice to be part of that.”

The Slovenian was dropped on the second sector and immediately all alarms rang. The German team was under pressure and burned all matched to bring him back to the front - with Roglic himself closing the gap in the intermediate sprint. He was lucky that a full Visma did not commit in the front peloton not to distance him, but instead focused fully on Tadej Pogacar. Throughout the day Evenepoel and Pogacar attacked on several occasions and Roglic was on the back foot several times. But with Vingegaard not collaborating with the front groups, the GC riders would come back together for the final flat kilometers.

Roglic thus managed to save a day where Red Bull - BORA was not able to match rival teams and where minutes could've been lost if at any moment Visma or UAE fully dedicated themselves to leaving the Slovenian out of the fight for the race win. Into the second week, 1:36 minutes separate Roglic from the yellow jersey.

“I am certainly happy and proud of where I am. I gave everything I had. The guys ahead of me are simply stronger at the moment. But there are still two weeks to come, right? I just have to stay healthy. Then there will definitely be more opportunities," he concluded.