Primož Roglič's personal physician has suggested Jumbo Visma were so intent on winning the Tour de France, and using the Slovenian to help Jonas Vingegaard to victory, that the team doctors did not look after him properly after he crashed.
Dr Mito Bračič, a physiotherapist and doctor of sports science, has questioned if the team doctor's loyalty lay with the team at the expense of looking after Roglič, saying the Slovenian went undiagnosed twice this season despite being seriously injured.
He explained Roglič's fractured vertebrae - which inflamed the flesh around them when he continued racing - were not diagnosed during the Tour and, instead, he raced on until finally being forced out, due to his injuries, before the start of stage 15.
“Team doctors sometimes forget their Hippocratic Oath and are prisoners of capital. They work for the benefit of the team, not the patient or an athlete, unfortunately," said Bračič in an interview with Sportal.
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“That day, with Primož, everything revolved around the shoulder joint, which I was not so worried about,” Bračič said of the day of the crash on the Tour. “However, the information was hidden at the time, even Primož did not mention it to me during the race, that he had problems with his back…
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"I think they were silent because it was a team tactic for Primož to help Jonas Vingegaard beat Tadej Pogačar. Only when they finished the 11th stage, where Vingegaard gained a big advantage, was it clear that Primož had done his job.
“But the story was repeated when the team said that the injury was nothing, that he should just take a pill. It wasn’t until Primož got an MRI scan in Monte Carlo on his own initiative and sent me a picture that we realised that the injury was not so innocent."
Bračič said Roglič first came to him, with knee pain, after he abandoned Itzulia Basque Country in April. He also suggest at that stage the rider had not even undergone the type of examinations he should have to find and address the problem.
“We sorted things out in ten days so he could train normally again. At that time, Primož approached me with some assessments of his condition, which were completely wrong. Until then, he had not even undergone a serious examination.
“The team assumed that it was some kind of pain behind the knee and suggested that he take a pill, but he himself felt that it would not be enough. As soon as I examined him with an ultrasound, I realised that it was a rupture of the calf muscle tendon. Primož had an MRI the same day, and my assumptions were confirmed.”
