It’s been the intriguing subplot of the Tour de France so far: is Primož Roglič even bothered about doing well?

Previously such an unthinkable proposition – this is, after all, a fierce competitor who has won five Grand Tours and almost 100 races – Roglič began the race by delivering an oddly humorous and blasé press conference in which he laughed his way through and stated that “I don’t really care much” when asked if this could finally be the Tour in which he buries years of heartache. The message he was trying to project was that he doesn’t need the Tour to define him.

And he absolutely doesn’t, but most assumed his laissez-faire attitude was just an act, a ploy to detract attention from him. Yet that isn’t the case: his indifferent attitude continued when he lost 39 seconds on day one due to crosswinds and he stated once more that he wasn’t bothered. Three days later, when he finished 32 seconds adrift to winner Tadej Pogačar on stage four, he once again trotted out the same line: “Like I always say, I always want to win, but in this case I don’t care about the time gaps,” he said.

This article was published by Cycling Weekly during the Tour de France. You can read the full article here.