“This will be my last year of road cycling.” were the words with which Peter Sagan surprised the media present at the Tour of San Juan, AS between them, on his 33rd birthday. After a complicated 2022 course in which his decline increased, the Slovakian opted for a new road map in his sporting life, which above all has the greatest possible enjoyment as its goal. The TotalEnergies runner spoke about this Tuesday in the virtual presentation organized by Warner Bros. Discovery of the cycling season, broadcast in Spain by Eurosport, to which this newspaper had access.
“This is the last year and I really want to enjoy it. I want to dedicate my time to all my fans around the world.” Sagan confessed, still without revealing what will be his farewell stage to road cycling: “Now I will continue with the classics. Then I go back to the Tour de France. The farewell? This season, every race is the last. That’s a very good emotion.”
On the horizon, as he confirmed in the Argentine round last January, his move to mountain biking appears, a discipline in which he began to compete on a bicycle and in which he wishes to put an end to his sporting career: “I always wanted to do this to end cycling because I started with mountain biking, where I also had some achievements and medals from world championships in the past, when he was a junior. It is very beautiful, a totally different atmosphere than professional cycling on the road.”
For next year, the challenge will be very different, huge, since Peter dreams of the Olympic Games in Paris 2024: “After the Tour, in Glasgow will host all the cycling world races this yeareither (except cyclocross). So, he should be there and he should be the first runner from a country that is not qualified for the Olympics.” Therefore, the task of getting enough points in the ranking to reach Paris will be of vital importance for an appointment in which, although he is cautious, he does not set limits: “Well, Olympic gold is also very difficult. It’s a big goal for me. For me it will be very nice to qualify and be in Paris on mountain bikes, but step by step”. There would be no better closure for a legendary career like his.