Wright is right and Rog is wrong!

Cycling Social media is abalze this past few days. The crash of Primoz Roglic in the last 100 meters of Stage 16 of this years Vuelta a Espagna has been dominating the cycling media feeds. Yesterday afternoon, shortly before the finish of the stage, Team Jumbo Visma sent out a press release stating the their rider Roglic blames Fred Wright for the crash and the teams managing director Richard Plugge even went as far as to compare the incident to the crash between Dylan Groenewegen and Fabio Jakobson in the 2019 Tour of Poland. These statements have led to many questions being asked, so lets break them down :

How did the crash happen ?

Everyone has their own opinion but 95% of people would put it down as an unfortunate racing incident, or rider error on the part of Roglic himself. Many of his biggest fans even agree on this point.

So what actually happened?

In the kilometers leading up to the crash Roglic had attacked in a brave and exciting bid to gain some time back on race leader Remco Evenepoel. The 4 riders who managed to jump onto his wheel all proclaimed afterwards that they were right on the limit if not beyond at times just trying to hold his wheel. He absolutely buried himself and went as deep as he could possibly go. He was brave and inspirational. Going around the final sweeping right hand bend with 250 meters to go he went wide and over to the left hand side of the road. Mads Pedersen on his wheel, saw the finish line up ahead and cut the corner tighter with the 3 riders behind following his line staying to the right hand side of the road. Roglic at this point was running on fumes.

The all out effort was taking its toll and he reached a point of fatigue where the perception of danger was diminished. In a desperate bid to finish on the same time as the stage winner, and thus maximise his very hard earned gains he swung across and tried to jump onto a passing wheel. Unfortunately for him the wheel he chose was not the last wheel but the second last one, and as he moved across further he moved in on top of Fred Wright who was now going faster. The coming together saw Roglic hit the deck. Roglic never looked over his shoulder as he was moving across to see how many riders were there, or where he was going to slot in. A lesson learned in schoolboy racing was lost on a rider who never raced as a schoolboy.

Why is Roglic now blaming Fred Wright?

Primoz Roglic is a human being. His appeal to fans has not just been his ability to win big races, but his ability to bounce back from adversity and very often after crashes. Every human being has a breaking point and it is quite possible that Primoz has now reached his. He is a multi millionaire. He and his family are set for life. Just as any normal human being who has been physically hurt and injured well above what could ever be considered normal would ask, he must now be asking himself why he should keep on going putting his body through this. What is it all for?

If he takes the blame entirely on his own shoulders there can be only two outcomes. He works harder than ever before on his bike handling and with a sports psycologist and tries to get his confidence back, or he retires.

If he blames someone else then he might be able to just go back racing as he did before. Fred Wright is the branch to cling to and this will have been encouraged by the team.

Why are Jumbo Visma blaming Fred Wright?

There are a number of factors at play here.

Only one week ago Roglics’ personal Physio and sports science doctor, Mito Bračič spoke out to say that the team had put overall victory in the Tour de France  by Jonas Vingegaard above the health and well being of Primoz Roglic following a serious crash on stage 5, by underplaying his injuries and letting him continue racing until stage 11. This was very bad PR for the team and made it look like they put winning above the health of their riders. Now, here in the Vuelta, with Roglic already having abandoned the race they get to speak out prioritising rider well-fare.

Team Jumbo Visma pay Roglic €2 million per year to win races. He is a bankable star who they want to continue to win races. If he is now doubting himself and asking if all of these crashes are his own fault and questioning his ability to go on racing they may be trying to restore his confidence by blaming Fred Wright.

What next?

Team jumbo Visma have made a mistake and can either double down and alienate a huge amount of neutral observers along with some of their own fans. Or, they hold their hands up, say that they are obviously biased towards their own rider and in the cold light of day want to apologise to Fred Wright and look forward to Primoz returning to racing as soon as possible.

They may also say nothing and hope that in a weeks time all of this will pass and be replaced by something else in the news cycle.

Roglic and Wright both offer the Rocky Balboa appeal. Roglic dislocates his shoulder, sits down on a fans picnic chair and pops it back in himself before remounting and rejoining the race.

Wright keeps on attacking and sprinting and trying everything to win a stage day after day and never gives up.

They are both exciting to watch and to cheer on from the roadside or on TV. Hopefully next season, we the fans get to enjoy their attacking spirits once again.

Barry