Primoz Roglic: Jumbo-Visma rider defiant as he returns from injury ahead of La Vuelta 2022 title defence

Published 18/08/2022 at 18:50 GMT

After retiring from this year's Tour de France, having dislocated his shoulder and sustained a back injury during Stage 5, Primoz Roglic is making his return to competitive racing at the Vuelta a Espana - where he is aiming to finish as champion for the fourth successive time. His high crash rate has been criticised by Jens Voigt, but Roglic is confident he can win another Grand Tour.

'I'm here, I'm ready' - Roglic says he is fully prepared for La Vuelta

“I’m here, I’m ready.” That is the defiant message from Primoz Roglic as he prepares to take on the Vuelta a Espana in a bid to win his fourth successive red jersey.

The 32-year-old has been out of action since sustaining a dislocated shoulder and back injury during Stage 5 of this year’s Tour de France, leading to him retiring nine stages later.

Roglic has been declared fit to defend his title in the third and final Grand Tour of the season.

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Speaking to Eurosport about his condition Roglic said: “We will see through the race”, if he is ready to compete or not, but in his mind, he feels “healed”.

The race will see the Slovenian go up against fellow former winners Chris Froome and Simon Yates, while Ethan Hayter also provides British interest as he makes his debut.

Roglic has faced criticism from Eurosport cycling expert Jens Voigt, who thinks his tendency to crash leaves him in a position where he will struggle to win another Grand Tour in his career.

Voigt said, “For my taste, he crashes once too often. Roglic's crash rate is very high, too high. In addition, the accidents were sometimes bad, hurt and he lost a lot of skin in the process.”

Well, the first attempt for Roglic to prove him wrong begins in the Netherlands, where teams take on a 23.3km team time trial on Stage 1 of La Vuelta.

Asked whether his Jumbo Visma team arrive as favourites for the opening section of the race, Roglic said, “I don’t care. I care about the fact that yes, we have to go there, we have to put everything on the road. Our best. Then definitely we can be proud and happy about the result that we will achieve.”

Although keen to make an immediate impact on his return from injury, Roglic knows he is not the only rider who has faced problems in their preparation.

“I mean it’s never, how do you say it, you can imagine always a lot of scenarios so the people has their own problems at the end, but my path it was the way it was”, he said.

"I am super happy actually that I am here, that I could make it to the start."

Looking ahead to what is to come in the race - which moves between the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, ending on September 11, Roglic said he is “really looking actually forward for tomorrow to give it all with my team-mates, with my team and then, hopefully the next days.”

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Stream La Vuelta live and on-demand on discovery+. You can also watch all the action live on eurosport.co.uk.

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