Alto de Gredos (Spain) (AFP)

The Slovenian hovers and is not ready to land: soon to be 30 years old, Primoz Roglic is expected to win the Vuelta Sunday, his first big Tour, he who got into the saddle late after starting his career on the jumps ski jump.

Coming from a country where sport rhymes with snow, Roglic puts Slovenia on the world map of cycling. Anyone who still presents himself as a former ski jumper on his Instagram account should, unless accident, offer his country a first victory in a three-week cycling race on Sunday in the streets of Madrid.

"It's a great day for Slovenian cycling, it's really nice," he said on Saturday, with red jersey on his shoulders, without breaking his usual impassibility.

This victory is a feat for this discreet boy of 1.77, 65 kg, who really took off the skis in 2012.

Born in October 1989 in Trbovlje, he grew up in a low mountain in Kisovec, an hour's drive from the Planica ski jumping hill. Junior world champion in teams in this discipline in 2007, it is paradoxically a fall that puts the bike on the road.

Cycling? "I started it as part of a re-education after a skiing accident, but I never thought I'd get there," he said in his first World Tour victories (1st Division). "Arrive there" is to raise the arms during two stages of the Tour de France, in 2017 on the legendary Galibier and in 2018 in Laruns.

With this victory in the Pyrenees, he signed in Paris a 4th place on the Great Loop 2018. Already a coup de force. But this brown tattooed goat care, mutique wish, does not stop at the foot of the podium. His flight plan is drawn, simple and ambitious: win a big Tour.

- Joker against the clock -

It must be said that Roglic, powerful rider and tough climber, has in his game two joker cards for three weeks race: that of the intrepid descender and, especially, that of the time trial specialist.

"Rogla" proves it from its first season in the elite, in 2016, with the Dutch formation LottoNL, become Jumbo-Visma. At the age of 26, he won a time trial in the Tuscan vineyards of the Tour of Italy, during his first participation in a Grand Tour.

A very late arrival among the best and a bitter welcome announcement: this year, he is suspected of using a hidden engine.

Three years later, it is in favor that he returns to the Giro 2019. He does honor to his reputation and wins the prologue and the time trial. A promising time for the pink jersey, he finished third behind Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz and Italy's Vincenzo Nibali.

"I enjoyed getting on the podium with Richard, Vincenzo and their children, and in a few days I'll become a dad, and who knows, maybe I'll do the same with my future child at the next big tours. "We'll see what the future holds," he said patiently at the end of the Giro.

For him, the future ended up red on the Vuelta, where he arrived fresh, after the stalemate on the Tour de France, and family, with his wife and baby.

It was all the same on the French side of the Pyrenees, in Pau, that he took the red jersey while flying over the "chrono" of the 10th stage. The following days will be those of the resistance against Alejandro Valverde, Miguel Angel Lopez and Nairo Quintana, to climb to the top of the podium in Madrid and consider doing the same one day on the Tour de France: "Yes, why not?", he asked Saturday.

With Roglic, Slovenia holds its first cycling hero. But the second is already on the nose with prodigy Tadej Pogacar. Winner Saturday of his third stage on this Vuelta and 3rd of the final general, with the key to the white jersey of the best young, Pogacar has made a name for himself. All at 20 years old. At this age, Roglic was still a ski jumper.

© 2019 AFP