The emptiness is followed, so to speak, by abundance.

After his early retirement from the Tour de France, Primoz Roglic initially compensated for his disappointment with Olympic gold in the time trial.

On Saturday he also won the opening time trial of the Spain cycling tour - a first step on the way to his third Vuelta victory in a row.

The Slovenian was the very last of the 184 participants to leave the starting ramp in Burgos.

About eight and a half minutes later, the clock was stopped for him.

He stormed the finish line with the fastest time.

"This is crazy, isn't it?" He exclaimed with glee.

“It's a nice start.

I'm enjoying that. And I hope we can enjoy more days as a team. "

The shape curve is correct

Roglic could not only look forward to the victory, but also to a good gap to his most important rivals.

He lost 27 seconds on the Egan Bernal time trial course, which is only 7.1 km long.

He was 25 seconds ahead of Richard Carapaz.

The Giro winner from Colombia and the Olympic champion from Ecuador are considered the toughest opponents of the Slovenian.

Even his noble helper Sepp Kuss was faster than the competition.

The American got the mountain jersey as an encore.

As the fastest of them all, he stormed the Alto de Castillo, a third category hill.

His result as shown by that of the captain Roglic: The shape curve at Team Jumbo-Visma is correct.

That was not to be expected, especially with Roglic.

Leaving the tour was a physical and psychological low point.

"I was really disappointed and felt empty," he said.

Then he turned the focus to the Olympics.

The road race has not yet gone according to his expectations.

Roglic, listed in 28th position in the road race, then returned the favor a few days later in the time trial.

He has not been seen in any competition since then.

The former ski jumper, known to be eager for training, worked on his condition away from the television cameras. That is obviously true now. But he didn't really want to get used to the idea of ​​a start-to-finish victory. "Let's wait," said Roglic. A quick change at the top is characteristic of the Vuelta. The short, steep ramps ensure that drivers in excellent form on the day can quickly get 20 or 30 seconds out of rivals in just one day. So Roglic remains cautious for the time being, even if only with words.