Roglic looking to target three-week races after Tour de Romandie win

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Primoz Roglic (LottoNL-Jumbo) has said that he would like to target three-week races after he claimed his second consecutive general classification win this season at the Tour de Romandie. A late-comer to cycling after starting his sporting career in ski jumping, Roglic says that it will take time to turn him into a Grand Tour rider.

The Swiss race victory comes just a couple of weeks after he beat Mikel Landa (Movistar) to win the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. At Romandie, he held his own against a very strong Egan Bernal (Team Sky) to best him by just eight seconds in the overall standings.

“For sure I would like to give myself a try for the biggest races in cycling but as we all know it doesn’t come overnight or in one season, you have to give it time,” Roglic said after the Tour de Romandie’s final stage. “This year was really focused. I already saw last year that I could be really close in one-week races and this year I really focused on trying to win those races. For sure, in the future, I will try on those races.”

Roglic has ridden just two Grand Tours since turning professional in 2016, after starting the Giro d’Italia just months into his debut season. He returned the faith of his team by coming within a second of victory in the prologue before going on to win the main time trial. Last year, he rode the Tour de France for the first time and came home with a stage win after a long-range solo break that included a trip over the Col du Galibier. He will ride the Grand Boucle again this season, but will first take some time to himself after a busy start to the season.

“First holidays and then I will do the Tour of Slovenia and then the Tour de France,” he said, adding after he was asked of his ambitions for the Tour de France, “I have been doing what I wanted for this season. I have achieved my goal with Pais Basque and now with Romandie, but still, I think of course there are really big challenges coming. Of course, I will try to take some rest and not think about cycling too much and then I will focus on trying to be at my best at the Tour de France.”

With two major victories under his belt this season, Roglic says that there is still plenty for him to work on, particularly his positioning and jostling in the bunch.

“I have been a cyclist for five or six years,” he explained. “I was not a part of cycling until I was 23 so immediately I was elite and I have had to race to get experience and learn as I go, like at every race that I do.

“I think I just need to ride more in the peloton and fighting for the position, those kinds of things. You can always be better and not lose energy in the moments that you shouldn’t. There are always a lot of things because stages are sometimes for five hours and a lot of things happen. You have to try to be as economical as possible and just do your job at the end.”