“You get tears in your eyes” – Primoz Roglic watches Slovenian ski jumper fall just short of Olympic gold in Milan

For most of the cycling world, the Winter Olympics sit firmly in the background once February training camps are done. For Primoz Roglic, they never do. His journey into elite sport began on the ski jumping hill long before it took him to the top of the Grand Tour podiums and Olympic time trial gold.

So when the Winter Games arrived in Milan, Roglic did not attend as a distant observer or a celebrity guest. He travelled as someone who understands the moment from the inside.

Roglic was present at the Slovenian House in Cortina d’Ampezzo during the Games, watching events unfold as a supporter rather than a competitor. He followed the women’s ski jumping competition on television and attended the women’s downhill in person. What he saw stirred something deeply familiar. When Nika Prevc fell just short of Olympic gold, the reaction from one of Slovenia’s most decorated modern athletes was immediate and unguarded.

“You get tears in your eyes. Simply that,” Roglic said in quotes collected by Siol, describing how it felt to watch the competition unfold. “Especially when I was watching her.”

For cycling fans, Roglic’s response lands with particular force. His career has been defined as much by near misses, crashes and narrow defeats as by Grand Tour victories. Few riders understand better how thin the line is between triumph and heartbreak on sport’s biggest stages.

That context framed his reaction to Prevc’s silver medal. Roglic did not downplay the disappointment or try to soften it with platitudes. Instead, he explained why the pain was both natural and, in his eyes, necessary for athletes who are wired to win.

“Nika is a winner because she has already won so many competitions,” he said. “And it certainly holds true that if, as an athlete, you are satisfied with second place, then you will never win. It was understandable, and also necessary.”

The words carry weight coming from a rider who has lived through Olympic pressure himself. Roglic won gold in the individual time trial at the Tokyo Games, but his relationship with the Olympics long predates that success. As a former ski jumper, the Winter Games were once the dream that defined his sporting ambitions.

“I dreamed of the Winter Olympics. More than the Summer ones, that’s for sure,” he admitted. “It’s nice to feel them, even if only as a spectator.”

Roglic’s comments also offered a rare window into how elite athletes measure success. From the outside, silver medals and podium finishes are career-defining moments. Inside the peloton, they often carry a more complicated emotional cost.

“What people see are first places and medals,” Roglic said. “But all of us athletes know that you don’t just say one year before, ‘I’ll go to the Olympic Games next year.’ You have to live and dream this your whole life for it to happen. And then you still have to be that much better to achieve something significant, a medal or some other success.”

That perspective resonates far beyond ski jumping. Cycling careers are built on years of sacrifice for moments that may last only seconds. For Roglic, watching Prevc was not about analysing technique or results. It was about recognising the familiar mix of pride, frustration and ambition that defines top-level sport.

“She absolutely has to be very proud of that medal,” he said. “She can now just enjoy it. What she showed throughout the whole season and now is just a bonus. We will cheer, and we will enjoy it.”

In Milan, Roglic was not the rider fighting for seconds on the road. He was the former ski jumper, the Olympic champion and the seasoned cyclist watching a compatriot live through a moment he knows intimately. For a sport that often measures success in watts and margins, his reaction was a reminder that at the very top, emotion still cuts deepest.