"You just want to be the best" - Primoz Roglic begins another season at star-studded Tirreno-Adriatico

Primoz Roglic is known for entering his racing season in good form, and at Tirreno-Adriatico the veteran will be tested against some of the world's best time trialists, climbers and classics specialists. There is no way around it, the Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe head is going into a difficult week of racing.

He is doing so late in the spring, after most of his peers, and following a three-week altitude camp at Mount Teide, something he has regularly done over the past years which has proven to be a successful formula.

“I think I’ve been here at least every February since 2017. Peaceful, beautiful. In the end, it’s never boring;" Roglic said in a press release issued by the team. “I miss the family after a while. We are all professionals and we all know why we are in the places that we are.”

A difficult process, but one that leads to good results as well. More and more riders take up altitude training in February and even January at this point in time, so Roglic may not see as much of a difference against his rivals as he might have otherwise in the past.

But his return to racing will be key to understanding where he stands in the peloton. “If you train and you’re alone, for sure you are not achieving your best. If you compare yourself with the rest, then you can see where you are and what still needs to be done.”

With a team consisting of Remco Evenepoel, Florian Lipowitz, Giulio Pellizzari and Jai Hindley, Roglic certainly has to fight for his place as a leader in the German team; but has also gotten freedom to race a different type of calendar, aiming for specific races and results. At Tirreno, he teams up with Pellizzari and Hindley, who will later on also co-lead the team at the Giro d'Italia.

“You just want to be the best," regardless of what it takes. The Slovenian still has one more year of contract left, and aims to win the Vuelta a España later on in the season where he could make history by doing so, becoming the first rider to ever win the Spanish Grand Tour on five occasions.

“We’ll just see where I will be now at the beginning. You always want to win. Of course, I would love also to win now after it was a while. It doesn’t matter if it’s flat, it’s down, it’s up. It’s the same. It’s hard and you need to have the legs and to be there with the best ones.”