For example, we can confidently say now that Jumbo-Visma will again be the strongest team in the peloton, with not one, not two, but three leaders, perennial Tour favorite Primož Roglič, last year’s Tour de France surprise, Jonas Vingegaard, and the multi-talented Wout van Aert.
In fact, the excess of talent on the Dutch team may present a problem, with Roglič and Vingegaard both targeting the yellow jersey and van Aert aiming for the green jersey. As Roglič has said, Jumbo-Visma could also shoot for the polka-dot jersey because they have superb climber, Sepp Kuss, expected to ride the Tour.
Roglič – who recently signed a contract extension with the Dutch team until 2025 – is wary of the possibility of competing objectives and has called on the team to “think carefully” about how it approaches the 2022 Tour de France.
With van Aert having publicly stated that he has the Skoda green jersey in his sights this year, this could present a problem to the ambitions of the other two team leaders, Roglič and Vingegaard.
The Belgian had been vital to Roglič’s previous attempts to win the yellow jersey, with stage wins coming when an opportunity arose or, as last year, after the Slovenian was no longer in the race.
In an interview with the Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, Roglič said there was a danger of the team spreading its resources too thin, especially with two riders going for the same prize.
“In theory, anything is possible,” he said. “But the team has to determine what our main goal is, and then we have to have a plan that works for the two of us. It must be the intention that Wout and I help each other. We have to find a way so he can go for a stage win and I can try to get some time at the same time. We have to think about that carefully.”
Roglič said that his pursuit of a Tour de France GC victory is not an “obsession,” insisting that he’d rather be remembered as a “fighter” than be judged on his trophies. Still, at 32 years of age, this may be the last realistic chance he will have to win the yellow jersey.
“I’d love to win the Tour, sure, but I don’t need to be remembered as the rider who won or didn’t win the Tour,” Roglič said. “I’d rather people think of me as the man who fought for it every time, the man who gave the best of himself every race. That’s who I want to be.”
The Slovenian finished fourth overall in the 2018 Tour in what was his breakthrough as a potential Grand Tour champion. He returned in 2020 after winning the Vuelta a España, but suffered a heartbreaking penultimate-day defeat at the hands of countryman Tadej Pogačar. An early crash put an end to his GC ambitions last year.
Asked whether he remained confident he can still win the yellow jersey, he declared: “Yes, I believe in that.”
