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Follow us on GoogleThursday should have been THE moment for the first showdown between Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard. Although it did happen, in the second stage of the Volta ao Algarve, the leaders of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe and Visma | Lease a Bike did not get involved. Roglic tried it quite early in the final, but it was unsuccessful.
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The German formation increased the pace on the second to last climb, serving leader Roglic. Jan Tratnik was the last man ahead of his compatriot. "The goal was to make the race as hard as possible on that climb," Daniel Benson recalled. "Primoz was a bit behind, and then there was some miscommunication."
"I didn't know whether to ride at the front or not, but then Primoz moved up, and I thought he had good legs." In the end, with more than 12 kilometers to go, Roglic was alone in the front group. That was the moment I made my first attempt at shaking things up. It didn't work, but the plan was clear. "We tried it because this climb was a bit more distinctive, but in the end, it was more of a game of cat and mouse." Vingegaard was glued to the wheel of his former teammate, preventing Roglic from getting away: in the end, he finished ninth.
Read more below the video!
Tratnik needs time to adjust: "Slowly but surely"
Nonetheless, the Vuelta winner team is not dissatisfied. Tratnik needed some time to adjust. "It was good," he says of his first real meters in Roglic's service. "It was the first race with Primoz, and we are making progress. It's the start of the season, and we still have time for the bigger goals. We had no luck in Bessèges because the race was canceled. But I know I'm in good shape, so I want to test myself here." In the Star of Bessèges, leader Maxim Van Gils crashed after a car came onto the course.
Bram van der PloegEditor-in-chief
Bram van der Ploeg (35) is the proud founder of In de Leiderstrui, IDL Pro Cycling's parent site, launched in 2018. Finally, he could create stories about the sport he had followed since childhood. He is the editor-in-chief on paper, but prefers to be with his recorder next to a rider, a team bus, or in the mud at a cyclocross race. Every year, from February to the end of May, Bram follows the entire Italian cycling season, from the Trofeo Laigueglia to the Giro d'Italia, with the grand finale in October in Lombardy. During that time, he lives in Tuscany, where he has since come to call Italy his 'home'.
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