tour reporter
Peter Sagan has shaped the Tour de France over the past decade. The Slovakian was a pioneer of modern cycling on and off the road. His farewell to the most important cycle race in the world takes place quietly.
Of course, things are not quiet around Peter Sagan. In the morning, there is a large loudspeaker on his team’s bus, playing rock music. And when Sagan gets off the bus, there are a comparatively large number of people standing there to take a picture. But it’s no longer the fuss Sagan used to cause. And at the finish, mostly only Slovakian television is interested in what he has to say about the day’s stage.
Sagan looks done
Eighth place in the sprint on stage 11 is the best finish on this one Tour de France is accounted for by Sagan. He finished the 19th stage on Friday (21.07.23) in second place as 149th of the 151 drivers still in the race, 16’45 minutes behind the day’s winner Matej Mohric. On a day when he would have been one of the favorites in the past. But those times are in the past. And so it is a rather quiet farewell for Peter Sagan from the tour.
“I’m glad it’s almost over now”, says Sagan in an interview with the sports show. And you don’t just have to relate that to the Tour de France, but to your career as a professional cyclist in general. At the end of the season he will stop at least on the road. And you can tell it’s about time. He looks exhausted after almost 14 years in the world tourin which he significantly shaped cycling and the tour.
“After all these years you probably feel a bit tired”says Daniel Oss, “especially one like him who’s always been in that superstar position.” Oss has accompanied Sagan for many years. The Italian was already the man at Sagan’s side when he made his debut in France. “I saw him come to the top, saw him change cycling and become a star”says Oss.
Seven times the green jersey in Paris
It was a rapid rise: in 2012 Sagan rode the Tour de France for the first time. And to say that the then 22-year-old professional cyclist from Slovakia rocked the race directly would be an understatement. Sagan won three stages, whether in the sprint or with punch on a steep final ramp. He finished second on a stage in the Pyrenees with two category one climbs. And of course he ended up winning the green jersey for the best points in Paris.
Peter Sagan on his first Tour stage win in 2012
The Maillot Vert became his favorite attire on the tour in the years that followed. He wore it seven times between 2012 and 2019 in Paris – a lone record. And he might have won it an eighth time if he hadn’t been disqualified in 2017 after competing in a sprint Mark Cavendish had collided. The jury made Sagan for that crash responsible, also for the injured Cavendish meant the end of the tour. Six months later, the world association UCI revised the verdict and rated what happened as a normal racing accident.
Like others, Sagan wasn’t squeamish in the sprint finals, which suited his image as a cycling punk. A bully with brilliant wheel control. Initially with short hair and clean-shaven, later with long hair and a full beard. And with cheering poses that imitated Forrest Gump or where he pumped up his biceps. On difficult mountain stages in the Gruppeto, he sometimes delighted the fans along the way wheelie at the final climb about after Alpe d’Huez. However, he sometimes went very wrong, for example when he grabbed a woman’s buttocks on the podium at the Tour of Flanders.
Pioneer of modern cycling
With his sporting successes and his appearance on social networks, Sagan was a style-defining figure for modern cycling. Driver types like Tom Pidcock, Wout Van Aert or even Tadej Pogacar anticipated Sagan or much more paved the way. He drove offensively, did not follow conventional tactical guidelines and was able to win on different terrains. Because Sagan not only won twelve stages on the Tour, but was also world champion three times and won two of the five “monuments” of cycling with the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.
He also attracted attention away from the bike with special performances and videos. So he imitated with his then-wife Katarina John Travoltas and Olivia Newton Johns Dance routines in the film “Grease”. Cycling had never seen anything like it before. And when Tadej Pogacar enters on the rest day these days Instagram-Video posts with a baguette in the jersey pocket, then Sagan was the pioneer there too. As a superstar, he also raised the German team Bora-hansgrohe, for which he drove from 2018 to the end of 2022, to a new level.
The downside of being a cycling rock star
All this has not passed him by without leaving a trace. Because even if it always looked so easy, cycling was just as hard work for Sagan as for everyone else. A strain, also and especially in the Tour de France. “I know from experience and with my past that it’s a lot of fun to win and achieve something. But ask anyone who has ridden the Tour more than ten times if they still like it and the answer will be no.”Sagan told the Belgian newspaper Het Laatse Nieuws before the tour. “It’s the biggest bike race in the world, there’s a lot of pressure. It’s more about getting everything right than fun. The Tour isn’t fun.”
The grueling life of cycling’s first rock star also had its downsides. He left his wife just a year after Grease-Video and the birth of their son separately. Ahead of this year’s tour, Sagan had his driver’s license suspended for drunk driving in his adopted home of Monaco. After a night of drinking in May and little sleep, he still had 1.46 per mille in his blood.
Now he is about to finish his last lap through France. There is no time to think about how he shaped the Tour de France and road cycling. “It is important to be in the here and now and not in the past”says Sagan. “Nevertheless, I’m trying to enjoy my last Tour de France.” But he wants to return to Paris again in 2024 – on the mountain bike at the Olympic Games. After that it should finally be over for the tired cycling punk.