ROGLIC Primoz

General
MULTI TALENTED
He was a promising ski jumper in his youth, winning gold at the 2007 World Junior Championships in Tarvisio, Italy. He enjoyed cycling growing up, but it was not until he was involved in a serious accident while ski jumping that he decided to pursue the sport. "When I was still a ski jumper, we weren't allowed to go cycling too much. You need quick muscles and in cycling it's all the same movements a lot of the time so you lose your speed. At the end of my ski jumping career, I bought myself a bike and discovered that I was pretty good at it." (cyclingnews.com, 20 Jan 2016)

LATE BLOOMER
He took up cycling at age 22 as part of his rehabilitation following a ski jumping accident. "I started with amateur races when I was 22 years old, but just home races. In my village there is just one climb. I was winning them all and I thought maybe I really had a talent. As an amateur, I started with the team [Slovenian cyclist] Andrej Hauptman was on. Before riding for the team, I was texting and emailing him all the time because I wanted to become a cyclist. I was already 22-23 years old, and he was saying, 'Forget it, forget it' but in the end he allowed me in because I was pushing and pushing, and then in the end I had the chance to start riding." (velonews.com, 29 Jan 2020)

TOUR HEARTBREAK
He wore the yellow jersey for 11 stages of the 2020 Tour de France, but lost it to fellow Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar on the penultimate stage in an individual time trial. "That defeat was brutal, devastating. But more for the people around me than for me. I'm someone who likes to keep moving forward, I don't get hung up on a result. If I look back at the Tour, while second place was frustrating at the time, it's still a great result. I told my teammates that our victory showed how strong we were as a team, our combined strength and the way we controlled the race. That was what we wanted to do before the start and that is what we managed to put in place. Of course, I didn't win but sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you've done everything you can, you have to accept it." (cyclingnews.com, 28 Jan 2021)

He became the first Slovenian cyclist to win a Grand Tour event when he claimed victory in the 2019 Vuelta a Espana. (SportsDeskOnline, 07 Sep 2020; olympics.nbcsports.com, 06 Sep 2020)

He became the first Slovenian to win a stage of the Tour de France after crossing the line first on stage 17 of the 2017 Tour de France. (olympics.com, 28 Aug 2020)