{"id":147721,"date":"2025-09-19T16:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T16:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/147721\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T16:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T16:45:09","slug":"primoz-roglic-can-mix-things-up-in-rwanda-world-championships-final-says-slovenia-national-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/147721\/","title":{"rendered":"Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d can ‘mix things up’ in Rwanda World Championships final, says Slovenia national coach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Slovenian national coach Uro\u0161 Murn has said that his elite men’s team are “better prepared” for the Road World Championships<\/a> in Rwanda than they were last year, where Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> soloed to a dominant victory in Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a press conference before heading to Africa, Murn admitted that Slovenia are the favourites to take home the elite men’s rainbow jersey once again, with Poga\u010dar top of the favourites list.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Murn also named Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a>, who arrives in Rwanda off the back of a two-week altitude training camp, will be another rider to watch at the 267.5km race on September 28.<\/p>\n

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“We are the favourites. The first favourite is the defending champion Poga\u010dar, but I also count on Rogli\u010d to turn the tables in Slovenia’s favour in the end,” Murn said, according to RTV.slo.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Rogli\u010d will join us directly from the high-altitude preparation. He went to Sierra Nevada for 14 days on his own initiative, and we all know how prepared he is when he comes straight to the races.”<\/p>\n

Murn said he hopes that Rogli\u010d will be on hand in the final of the race in Kigali, with the 35-year-old able to “mix things up”, even if Poga\u010dar is the team’s outright leader.<\/p>\n

Rogli\u010d’s most recent outing came at the Donostia San Sebasti\u00e1n Klasikoa last month, where he finished 22nd. Meanwhile, Poga\u010dar took second place behind UAE teammate Brandon McNulty at the recent GP Montr\u00e9al.<\/p>\n

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“I believe that Primo\u017e will be perfectly prepared, so that he can mix things up in the final and ensure the outcome,” Murn said.<\/p>\n

“But the first favourite is definitely Tadej, who has now proven his strength in the races in Canada, just like last year.<\/p>\n

“There will be no hiding places for us in these Championships. Everyone will race against us. I expect some individual escapes from the start, and then an attempt by those in the stronger group to break away somewhere two-thirds of the way.”<\/p>\n

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Murn also talked about team strategy ahead of the race. He said that he expects his team to go on the attack less than they did in Z\u00fcrich. Instead, they’ll hope to cover moves and aim to place a rider in an early breakaway.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think we will attack, just like we didn’t last year. The main thing is to cover the escape of good cyclists like last year,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I expect a similar story this year, that one of our riders will be there. I expect that he will be well prepared, certainly better than last year, Domen Novak, as well as Gal Glivar. Both of them successfully completed the Vuelta.<\/p>\n

“We saw that Matej Mohori\u010d<\/a> is good, probably in the best condition this year. I would say that we have an almost better prepared national team than last year. It’s a shame that Jan Tratnik is not there.”<\/p>\n

Before tackling the road race, however, attention will first turn to the individual time trial on Sunday, September 21.<\/p>\n

Defending champion Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) is the top favourite for glory once again, but Poga\u010dar also has a chance on the 40.6km route, which features 680 metres of climbing.<\/p>\n

“When he saw the time trial route, he immediately knew he had a chance to win,” Murn said. “I think we will be watching a duel between Belgian Remco Evenepoel and Poga\u010dar.”<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slovenian national coach Uro\u0161 Murn has said that his elite men’s team are “better prepared” for the Road…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-147721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}