'It's painful' - Primoz Roglic admits to problem with knee injury after Tour of the Basque Country

Updated 10/04/2022 at 12:20 GMT

Primoz Roglic failed to defend his Tour of the Basque Country title and looked surprisingly fragile on a couple of stages towards the end of the race, and he has revealed he has been troubled by a knee injury. The Slovenian is seen as the main challenger to his fellow countryman Tadej Pogacar in the Tour de France.

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Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma) has said his team will look to get to the bottom of a knee problem that affected his performance at the Tour of the Basque Country.

The Slovenian’s season is likely to be built on a Tour de France tilt, and he made a fine start to the defence of his Tour of the Basque Country crown with victory in the time trial.

However, he did not look his explosive self for the rest of the race and surrendered the race lead to Remco Evenepoel (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) when he was dropped on Stage 5.

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Roglic lit up the final stage to help team-mate Jonas Vingegaard, before trailing home to finish eighth in the general classification behind race winner Dani Martinez (Ineos Grenadiers).

Following the race, Roglic revealed a knee injury he had been carrying flared up during the race and will look to find the source of the problem.

"It was hard, obviously, and I had my own problems,” Roglic told Cycling Weekly. “Definitely in the end I was not good enough to be with the best ones."

Expanding on his problem, Roglic said: “I already had some problems in the muscle behind my knee before coming here, and during the week obviously it didn't get any better. It was not really a rest week.

"Anyway, it's painful. First of all I need to get myself well, to feel good on the bike, and then we'll see in the upcoming races."

The Tour de France gets underway with an individual time trial on July 1, and Roglic is looking to find a solution to his problems.

"We need to check it good," the 32-year-old said. "We need to really see what it is, to treat it the [best] way so that I don't have any more problems."

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