VUELTA AESPAÑA ON THE REBOUND
The second most surprising and impressive thing about the performance of Primož Roglic in the 2020 Vuelta a España was that he managed to turn himself around to win the Spanish race just weeks after one of the most brutal last-minute defeats in Tour de France history. The biggest surprise, however, came after the racing was done - in the post-stage interviews Roglic actually made a couple of jokes.
Wisecrack number one came after the Angliru stage, when Roglic was asked how tough it had been for him on Spain’s hardest climb. “Uhh, it was too hard a climb for the sprinters,” he deadpanned. Then when asked a few days later whether he feared a last-minute attack like Tadej Pogacar’s in the 2019 Vuelta, he observed, “As far as I know, Tadej is not here, eh?”
Neither of these quips exactly had journalists rolling in the aisles of the Vuelta pressroom. But Roglic’s improved sense of humour confirmed something we’d suspected from day one: that compared to the Tour, he was taking a very different attitude to the Vuelta.
“For me, it’s just fun to be here, to do this race in these hard times. I really need to enjoy it. There are a lot of differences compared to the Tour, and I’ve had enough stress for this year,” he explained.
This cheerier Roglic could not have been’s Tour review, giving only cautious, non-committal answers at the Tour, and keeping everybody at arm’s length, on and off the bike.
