The last time Primož Roglič decided to relinquish a leader’s jersey in a Grand Tour to relieve pressure on his team, it almost backfired spectacularly. The Slovenian had taken the lead on stage four of last year’s Vuelta a España, but with almost three weeks of racing still to go, he didn’t like the idea of making his Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe team sit at the front of the peloton for the next few weeks. Thus two days later, he and his team let the breakaway go up the road and win. Only one problem: the new leader was Ben O’Connor, and he had a lead of four minutes and 51 seconds. Roglič wouldn’t regain the red jersey until stage 19, eventually winning his fourth Vuelta. He avoided humiliation – just.
So now that Roglič is leading the 2025 Giro d’Italia after only two stages, following his second place on stage’s two time trial behind a storming Josh Tarling of the Ineos Grenadiers, he’s presented with the same conundrum: the Giro is not going to be won in the next week but in the final week, so why make his team defend the maglia rosa as the race makes its way north through Italy? On the contrary, history should serve as a lesson: if you gift the jersey to another team, you might never get it back. What does he do?
“In that case, some minutes less would be even better,” he laughed when asked if what unfolded in Spain last August was playing on his mind. But it’s also true that the Slovenian, winner of the Giro in 2023, is willing to hand over pink. Twice in seven minutes, he referenced the stage one winner Mads Pedersen and how stage three, the race’s last day in Albania, suits the Dane. It was code that while Roglič wants pink, he doesn’t want it yet.
“Tomorrow is a nice stage for Mads probably so we will see how it goes,” the effervescent 35-year-old Roglič said. “For us it doesn’t really change much – the goal is still to have it [the pink jersey] and to fight for it at the end in Rome. It’s a tough climb [38km before the finish in Vlorë] so we will see how hard it’s raced, but obviously Mads is in great shape, so I guess they will definitely try to set it up for him again.”
GC riders giving up the lead early on in a Grand Tour is a tried and tested formula stretching back decades. And with the sprinters and rouleurs likely to take centre stage most of the time until stage 10’s time trial, there is certainly sense in Roglič abdicating leadership duties to another team. But there is another way: last year, his compatriot Tadej Pogačar held pink from stage two until the finish (caveat: yes, we know Pogačar doesn’t do normal things and doesn’t follow convention), and as aforementioned, last year’s Vuelta almost turned into embarrassment for Roglič. He has a lot to weigh up. “I will just enjoy it,” he said of having pink draped over his shoulders again. “I have to take it day by day and just enjoy it because you never know when it will be the last one.”
Roglič was the best of the general classification contenders around the 13.7km time trial course in Tirana, putting 16 seconds into UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Juan Ayuso, 25 seconds into Bahrain-Victorious’s Antonio Tiberi, and more than 30 seconds into the likes of Adam and Simon Yates, Richard Carapaz and Egan Bernal. Already, the GC has a hierarchy of sorts. “I was thinking about not losing too much time at the start of the TT,” Roglič said, ever modest. “Obviously it was not the time trial that I would wish for to suit me the best, but at the end I had to do what was there and I’m just happy that I was able to enjoy it and ride quite hard. We didn’t really plan it, but we’re dreaming about having and fighting for it [the maglia rosa] in Rome, so we’re happy with today’s result and obviously with the jersey. It’s a great surprise in the end to have the pink jersey.” For how long will he keep it? Going by his talk, he’d be happy if Pedersen retakes the lead in Vlorë. But the spectre of the 2024 Vuelta surely hangs over him.
