Home » Sport » The National Police recovers Daniel Martínez’s bicycle – Mundo Ciclístico Magazine

The National Police recovers Daniel Martínez’s bicycle – Mundo Ciclístico Magazine

In all cases of the winners in sport, after podium, applause, trophies and recognition, they follow man or woman as human beings and the stories that have allowed them to get there. The case of the Slovenian cyclist Primoz Roglic it is not and cannot be the exception.

And it cannot be because precisely his – like that of his colleague Remco Evenepoel – are very particular life stories that somehow resemble in their beginnings, since Before wanting to be cyclists, they were immersed in other disciplines like the Belgian who before being a cyclist was a good footballer and Primoz who was first a good skier and in the jumps seemed to always be their destiny.

The future in Roglic’s life, Born in Zagorje ob Savi, a small town located in the central part of Slovenia on October 29, 1989, He was in the jumps because his childhood was spent in the “Jump” from Slovenia to an independent country after the dissolution of Yugoslavia and which was witnessed by his father, a former miner and today a worker in a water purification plant, and his mother, who took care of the housework for the three of them, taking into account that Primoz is an only child.

He Roglic’s first love at the age of ten was skiing, especially the one of jumps that started practicing near his home taking advantage of the facilities for this in your country. “My dream then was be the best ski jumper in the world”He declared after winning the Tour of Spain 2019.

Primoz Roglic silver medal

His career as a skier allowed him at 17 to be junior world team champion and then move to the town of Planica, the nerve center of professional skiing in Slovenia and the equivalent to Alpe d´Huez for cycling with its ramp of 140 meters. Planica is recognized in the sport of world and Olympic skiing as the place where they are performed the highest, longest and most complicated jumps with unpredictable winds and crowds of public attending national and world events of all categories.

Professional skiers say that they really it is a place where you literally fly on skis so it was an absolute success for young Roglic to reach train Planica and be considered as a prospect of the Slovenian Olympic Ski Team.

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However, the goddess fortune planned other events for “Rogla” and in one of his jumps he lost his balance and suffered a serious accident that saw him bounce on the snow for several meters and then slide another as many, receiving strong blows on the shoulder and head to be finally picked up on a stretcher. Incredibly, Primoz was not seriously injured except a small brain concussionHe, who did not deprive him from jumping again, simply saying: “I had no respect for Planica and to jump more than 200 meters you must learn to respect her.”

From skis to bicycles

Despite investing other four more years of his young existence training as a skier, Primoz’s progression stopped and his Olympic dream died, but being a cyclist was born because he quickly “jumped” from skis to duathlon and triathlon quickly learning to run a bicycle so he was drawn to this sport without having been never a cycling follower.

After standing out in local and national competitions, Roglic decided to “jump” to professionalism, for which he called one day Andrej Hauptman, manager of a continental team in Slovenia and told him he wanted to be a professional rider, receiving in response a laugh when knowing that he was a ski jumper but he recommended buying a bike and calling him after, which quickly happened once Roglic sold his motorcycle and bought a bicycle new racing.

So at 21 years of age, Primoz Roglic began his learning and maturation in the sport of cycling, progressing very quickly despite the fact that at the beginning he continually fell into the group, but his physical and mental strength allowed him to overcome everything quickly, standing out for his ability in descents and dexterity in the CRI.

In 2013, after a year completely dedicated to cycling, I was “Jumping” to professionalism, signing his first contract with the Slovenian team Adrià-Mobil, the most recognized continental formation in your country.

Primoz Roglic winner of stage 17

The transition from skiing to professional cycling was not so dramatic as the skier, according to Roglic himself: “His center of gravity, balance, flexibility and acrobatics work a lot, tools that help me in cycling”.

At 22 years of age, the young promise underwent a stress test in the Slovenian sports laboratory, revealing physical values ​​as important as those of Froome or Bernal and already in 2015 he achieved his first great victory in the Tour of Azerbaijan and in the Tour of Slovenia, so it catches the eye of the Jumbo-Visma team manager, Frans Maasen, who invites him to Holland for a new test and discovers that “It has a Ferrari engine.”

Leap to glory

And four years after starting training and cycling, Primoz Roglic’s life holds “another leap”, this time to the highest category of cycling (World Tour) in 2016 with the Jumbo-Visma team, contrary to the laws of current cycling to enter the jungle of great cycling at the age of 27 while Bernal’s generation, Pogacar, Evenepoel did it in their 20s.

what It does not prevent the ex-skier thanks to his 65 kilos and 1.73 of height, to excel quickly on all terrains, but especially facing the clock, since in his debut in the Giro d’Italia 2016 won the CRI of 40 kilometers after losing by thousandths the prologue against Tom Dumoulin.

What followed has been a meteoric race for Primoz and 2017 already shows it with victories in the Algarve, Romandie and on his Tour de France debut wins his first mountain stage in Chevallier greenhouse, in front of climbers of the stature of Chris Froome, Alberto Contador, Rigoberto Urán and Nairo Quintana.

The following year shows it enriching your track record and experience, imposing itself in stages of all kinds and races such as Basque Country, Tour of Romandie, Tour of Slovenia and again in the Tour de France wins a stage and is one step away from the podium with fourth place in the final general.

A new season arrives with 2019 and it would mean another leap for Roglic, this to glory that means winning a three-stage race: La Vuelta a España, who dominated at will won before the UAE Tour, Tyrrhenian-Adriatic and Romandie Tour while in the Giro d’Italia he took over two stages and took the podium in the third drawer with Richard Carapaz and Vincenzo Nibali, to masterfully close with the red champion shirt in Spain and being in turn to continue reaping victories in 2020.

Tour de France 2020 objective

2020 has not meant for Roglic, nor for the world squad an easy year due to the coronavirus pandemic which completely cut off the season in March damaging all Strategic plans for the three great tours. However, once the calendar is reset, Primoz Roglic has shone to an impressive level starting with being crowned national champion of great distance in his country and being second in the CRI, incredibly surpassed by the new jewel of Slovenian cycling, Tadej Pogacar.

“I want to win the Tour and I think I can do it”, for which he accepted without any discussion the arrival of a leader as Tom Dumoulin, noting that: “Tom will help us to have the strongest team possible”.

Roglic has a contract with his team until 2023 and will continue to be the man of very few words at press conferences, apparently cold and insensitive to the “Rogla Fever” that has turned him into a real hero in his country and the most recognized athlete. It is not the type runner that we are all used to seeing, although he does not avoid laughing or joking with his companions and nights and at his table there is a glass of red wine with dinner, in the same way that you always have a non-alcoholic beer at the end of the stages to rehydrate.

The facts are proving him right and now Roglic and his yellow and black Jumbo-Visma band position themselves as the only ones capable of dethroning the powerful and hitherto unbeatable Team INEOS, in a battle that will bring cycling a refreshing sports rivalry, very high-level and necessary, headed by a man who seemed to have the wrong sport initially but you finally found your true destination on the bike, that yes always in the way of the jumps.

Fotos: ©AdriaMobil/©BettiniPhoto/2017/18/19/20

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