Tour de France: Primoz Roglic shows he is over crash with strong summit win

Primoz Roglic ended speculation that he may still be suffering from the after-effects of his crash in last month’s Criterium du Dauphiné race with an imperious victory in the first summit finish to this year’s Tour de France, at Orcieres-Merlette ski station in the Hautes Alpes.

As suspected before this year’s Tour began, Roglic and his Jumbo-Visma proved team to be the strongest collective, setting up the Slovenian for his first stage win in the 2020 Tour. Ferocious pace-setting from his team mates, Wout Van Aert and Sepp Kuss, set up a trademark acceleration in the final 250 metres that left his rivals breathless.

“It was quite a fast day,” Roglic, winner of last year’s Vuelta a España, said, “but the guys did a really good job and at the end I could do a nice sprint so I’m very happy.”

But despite his stage win, Roglic did not do enough to lift the yellow jersey from the shoulders of current race leader Julian Alaphilippe, who retains his overall lead as the convoy leaves the Alps behind and turns west across the Drôme region towards the Rhone valley.

“It’s the news that I have to accept,” Roglic said of his failure to clinch yellow. “We stayed safe and at the end I won, so that’s even better.”

The 160.5km fourth stage, including five categorised climbs, built steadily to its frantic climax, after a six-man breakaway had moved ahead of the peloton within the opening kilometres, leading the way until the last man standing, Krists Neilands, of the Israel Start-Up Nation team, was finally reeled in seven kilometres from the finish.

The ladder of hairpins to Orcieres-Merlette, famously the setting for one of Eddy Merckx’s rare humiliations at the hands of Luis Ocaña, failed to provide a similar spectacular collapse among any of this year’s favourites. The 7.1km climb did enough, however, to begin the weeding out process that characterises Grand Tours, with Roglic’s Jumbo-Visma team again prominent at the head of the peloton.

On the approach to the finishing ascent, both Roglic’s team and that of Alaphilippe, Deceuninck-Quick Step, worked hard to keep the pace high, with the Ineos Grenadiers of defending champion Egan Bernal once again a discreet presence. But after his last teammate, Bob Jungels, dropped back, the yellow jersey-wearing Alaphilippe, was left isolated and unsupported.

The telling attacks came in the last kilometre, with the furious tempo seeming to again put Bernal and his team under intense pressure. The defending champion survived to finish with the front group, but he must now surely know where the main threat to a second Tour victory will come from.

Roglic, written off by some even before the race started after last month’s crash, is now exuding confidence. The former ski jumper, despite all the doubts over his form, appears to be flying. “I’m coming back and every day I feel a little better,” he said. “Definitely I’m ready.”