Primoz Roglic is leaving the Tour de France after two crashes. His dream of a podium finish is shattered and his German team needs new goals.
The German racing team Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe announced the decision on Friday afternoon (July 12, 2024). “He has now had two crashes. It can be ruled out that he has a concussion or broken bones. But the impact on his body is simply so great that you say: There is no point in setting off,” team sports director Rolf Aldag told Sportschau.
“He is of course disappointed, as we all are. He has invested a lot. We all need to take a deep breath first.” Roglic said goodbye to everyone and is now going home, reported Aldag. The team now has to find itself again. “We have spent half a year preparing for a goal, for a strategy: yellow with Primoz Roglic. That goal no longer exists.”
The new approach was discussed with the remaining riders. Attacks in breakaway groups and a final sprint by Danny Van Poppel remain as alternatives. “We want to continue to ride offensively, we have good riders. The Tour is not over, but it doesn’t make things any easier for us to shine here,” said Aldag.
Involved in mass crash
Roglic, who had already slipped on a descent on the eleventh stage, was involved in a mass crash twelve kilometers from the finish on Thursday. Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko fell over a road divider and triggered a chain reaction. Roglic was unable to avoid the crash and also injured his right shoulder, which he had already dislocated in early April.
The field drove away from Roglic and the other riders who had fallen. His teammates tried to catch up with the 34-year-old – without success. He lost almost two and a half minutes and fell to sixth place in the overall rankings, 4:42 minutes behind leader Tadej Pogacar.
Aldag: “It’s about Primoz as a human being”
“We have other concerns right now. First of all, it’s about Primoz as a person,” said Aldag afterwards. He did not criticize the organizers for the dangerous road dividers.
“364 days a year, these things are good to protect people in normal traffic, but they certainly don’t protect drivers in a final,” said Aldag. “But you can’t blame anyone. We knew they were there and I don’t know if there was an alternative to that road to get to the city center.”
Criticism from the Netherlands
Merijn Zeeman, sports director of the rival team Visma – Lease a Bike, of which Roglic was a member until the previous season, saw things very differently. “This is 100 percent the fault of the organisation. You cannot ride through such a passage with a Tour de France peloton. This is very irresponsible and should not happen,” Zeeman told the Dutch news website NU.nl.
