Bora-Hansgrohe Team Talk: The start of the Primož Roglič era

Analysing Bora's 2023 performances, and looking ahead to a 2024 with a big-name winner and Tour de France ambitions at the forefront

18:00, Monday 11th December 2023

Logan Jones-Wilkins

Junior Writer - North America

Share

Bora-Hansgrohe have slowly remodelled as a full-on GC team in recent years

Next season looks set to be a new era at Bora-Hansgrohe. After a few years of building strength and momentum as a GC-oriented team after their former talisman, Peter Sagan, started to wane, 2024 will see the German team vault into the discussion of Tour de France contenders with the all-important addition of Primož Roglič. While the team is already a Grand Tour-winning outfit after Jai Hindley’s Giro d’Italia win in 2022, the Tour is a different beast.

In cycling in 2024, there are just four names in the hunt to win the yellow jersey: Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pocačar, Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič. Now that Bora-Hansgrohe has one of those riders, the team is operating at a new standard of competitiveness.

While the likely departure of Cian Uijtdebroeks - that saga is still reverberating around the cycling world - will be a blow to the team, the framework at Bora-Hansgrohe is still strong. Between Hindley, Aleksandr Vlasov, Sergio Higuita and Lennard Kämna, the team was just lacking that one A1 overall contender to be the tip of the spear. Now that they have secured that rider in Roglič, it seems that all is to play for.

GCN’s 2023 review

Bora-Hansgrohe, by most metrics, had a successful season in 2023. It was a regression from 2022, when Jai Hindley won the Giro d’Italia and the team finished fourth in the UCI rankings, but the team was still able to muster 23 wins. Of those 23 wins, there were stage wins at all three Grand Tours, and top-10 overall finishes at the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.

In the first half of the year, the team struggled mightily at the Classics, with the likes of Nils Politt and Max Schachmann coming up well short of what their potential suggests. Nevertheless, things turned around at the Giro d’Italia and it was Nico Denz in particular who broke through, with two wins from breakaways at the race.

Success at the Tour de France followed, with Jai Hindley riding a masterclass on stage 5 to take the stage win and the yellow jersey on his debut. Even though he would falter the next day and crash later in the race, Hindley was able to fight his way through the race to take seventh overall.

Jai Hindley donned the yellow jersey during his Tour de France debut

To everyone’s surprise, that was not the team's only success at the Tour, with Jordi Meeus winning a close-run race on the Champs-Élysées to win stage 21. The Belgian sprinter, who was at the race for experience after Sam Bennett was left off of the squad due to a lack of fitness, had been building a neat sprinting CV over the previous few seasons at Bora-Hansgrohe and now will be seen in a different light, even with the team's ever-increasing focus on GC.

At the Vuelta a España, it was over to the other two Bora-Hansgroghe GC contenders to go for a result, with Aleksandr Vlasov and Cian Uijtdebroeks anchoring the team in Spain. Even with the promise of two solid podium contenders, it was a slightly lacklustre performance from the pair. Uijtdebroeks struggled with a saddle sore but had a couple of fantastic days in his Grand Tour debut. What may have been more significant, however, was the noticeable lack of cooperation between the two and the polemics in the media after the race.

Ultimately, that rift may have been the beginning of a conflict that has come to a head this week, with Uijtdebroeks signing a contract with Visma | Lease a Bike, something Bora-Hansgrohe deny he is able to do, as he is still under contract for them next season. While the saga is likely to continue into next year before it is settled in the eyes of the law, what does seem likely is that the team will lose their big man of the future.

Read more:

All things considered, though, the year was a success and most of the main players will be back in Bora colours in 2024. The expectation will certainly be for the team’s trajectory to turn up, especially with Roglič almost guaranteed to bring victories with him.

GCN’s rating: 7/10

While the stage wins were good, there were some holes in the team’s season that brought the team’s final results a couple of notches below their previous year's standard.

Bora-Hansgrohe's Top Five in 2024

Ins & Outs

There is no bigger addition to any team this season than Primož Roglič joining Bora-Hansgrohe. In one of the biggest mid-contract transfers in recent cycling memory, Roglič will be joining Bora-Hansgrohe on a two-year deal. With Roglič, the goal is simple: win the Tour de France. Whether he can depends somewhat on the other riders who are in and out of the team.

In terms of riders on their way out, there is also an obvious place to start, Cian Uijtdebroeks. The 20-year-old former Tour de l’Avenir winner has said that he will not be racing for team Bora-Hansgrohe next year, as his contract through 2024 dictated. Instead, for causes that have yet to be revealed or litigated over, Uijtdebroeks has signed a deal with Visma | Lease a Bike that will, if ratified, run through to the 2027 season.

Whilst losing Uijtdebroeks is a blow in the long term, it perhaps doesn’t change much for the team’s 2024 Tour ambitions. With the Belgian’s strengths, and what Roglič will need from a team at the Tour de France, Uijtdebroeks was most likely on the outside looking in when it came to Tour de France selection, with Bob Jungels, Lennard Kämna, Dani Maríinez, Hindley and Vlasov offering more experience, and, particularly in light with his comments after the Vuelta, more commitment to the cause of Roglič.

Primož Roglič getting his own chance to go for yellow is the main focus for Bora-Hansgrohe in 2024

In total, eight riders are on their way out, chief among them being Nils Politt and Sam Bennett. Bennett is out after a middling season at the team and a snub at the Tour de France, but the sprinter was never going to be a factor in Roglič’s tour hopes. Of all the riders who are on their way out, the loss of Nils Politt is a bit of a blow to a potential Tour de France team.

Replacing the eight outbound riders are Roglič and seven fresh faces that bring climbing, sprinting and youth reinforcements. Dani Martínez from Ineos Grenadiers is one name that jumps off the list, as does the sprinting talent Sam Welsford from dsm-firmenich. Martínez in particular brings credentials as a strong mountain domestique, with the Colombian playing a huge role in Egan Bernal’s 2021 Giro d’Italia triumph.

What the team did not bring in, however, was an established Classics rider to help in the spring and positioning at the Tour de France. The likes of Sagan and Daniel Oss are long gone, and in their place are riders who do not quite have the skill or strength of those riders.

Where Bora-Hansgrohe’s wins will come from in 2024

Without question, Bora-Hansgrohe will look to Primož Roglič to lead the team in the wins column. With his strike rate in recent years, it is one of the safer bets in cycling, with Roglič packing a massive finish kick to pair with his climbing and time trial presence. The only non-sprinters who seem to match Roglič’s ability to win races in such a volume are Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogačar. As he demonstrated in 2023, Roglič often has the beating of them both.

Beyond Roglič, Bora-Hansgrohe will be hoping their sprinting pairing of Jordi Meeus and newly-recruited Sam Welsford will be able to consistently perform in sprints across the calendar. Both sprinters have been progressing over the past few seasons, but both are a notch below the highest tier of fast finishers. The team will surely hope the two can elevate into those ranks, with the help of a strong pair of leadout riders in Ryan Mullen and Danny van Poppel.

Lastly, Lennard Kämna has made a name for himself as a bona fide breakaway assassin. While he might be on domestique duty at the Tour de France, at any other race he will be given some rope to sniff out a win or two.

Bora-Hansgrohe's next breakout rider

Emil Herzog became junior world champion in 2022 before signing for Bora-Hansgrohe

Bora-Hansgrohe has a few young names on their roster, but the one who stands out is Emil Herzog. Herzog became junior world champion in 2022 in Australia before spending a season at Hagens Berman Axeon in 2023.

While Herzog’s first season in the elite ranks had little to write home about, his final season as a junior was quite impressive. Beyond the win in the road race, Herzog had a podium in the time trial at Worlds, a win at the most prestigious junior stage race in the Peace Race and a top-five in the junior Paris-Roubaix. With those results, Herzog has been touted as a talented Classics rider with a strong set-up.

At Bora-Hansgrohe, with WorldTour support and many opportunities in the one-day arena, Herzog could see ample growth opportunities. With his talent, we expect to see him turn some heads in 2024.

What did you think of Bora-Hansgrohe's 2023 season? Will Primož Roglič find Tour de France success in Bora colours next season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!