24.04.2015

Primož Roglič was amazing, but…

Primož Roglič was amazing, but…
King stage of Tour of Croatia, 228 km long race from Plitvice to Učka, was won by Maciej Paterski of Poland. He was faster than Adria Mobil’s Primož Roglič on the last climb, our rider finished 18 seconds behind. Last two stages are easier, so the Polish rider (with the strong team) should defend the overall lead.

Team Adria Mobil finished the stage with great success, but team manager Boštjan Mervar was still disappointed, mostly due to the organizers. After the race he said: “I’m very disappointed, despite we took second place in the stage. We lost the race mostly due to the inexperienced organizers. Twelve riders escaped on 30th kilometer, among them were also our Radoslav Rogina and Macijej Paterski from CCC, but without riders from team Feldermayer. Austrian team then pushed the pace for the whole day and did let escapees to get away for more than two minutes. Before climb on Učka, with 20 km to the finish, there were three riders left up in front – Rogina, Paterski and Amico Bottechia’s rider, their gap was one minute. Paterski attacked on the beginning of the climb and Rogina couldn’t follow; the gap rose to one minute 35 seconds. With 12 km to the finish Paterski was the only let in the escape, so Domen Novak took the lead in the peloton. Peloton fell apart to the group of just eight riders, gap went down to 45 seconds. With 7 km till the finish I wanted to drive to Roglič to tell him who is in the lead and let him know that he should attack soon, so he can bridge the gap. At that time organizers decided to remove all the cars from the race, and that happened due to misunderstanding. Raglič didn’t get any info about the leader and was waiting for the attack of Sylwester Szmyd from CCC, but he had his rider in the lead. When Primož decided to attack with 2 km to the finish it was already too late in he cross the finish line 18 seconds behind Paterski."

Primož Roglič lost the stage and quite possibly also the overall victory due to the lack of information, so he was very short after the race: “Despite everything I’m very happy, it’s a great result. I would like to thank my team that made this possible.”

Fourth stage will be 152 km long and will go from Pula to Umag. It’s expected that the race will finish with a sprint and this will be again chance for Adria Mobil – the team is unbeaten for years in Umag.

Srečko Glivar
Photo: facebook Tour of Croatia

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