The three-time world champion guest in Trento: “I will continue with mountain biking, my youthful passion”
It is certainly not usual to see a triple world champion who starts changing the tire of a bicycle in front of a few hundred people, it takes him just over three minutes just because the pump inflated the inner tube badly, he asks for the time and says : “It could have been done better…”. It only happens at the Sports Festival and why is someone like Peter Sagan doing it, another category not only for what he has done in professional cycling (are three consecutive World titles like no other or seven green jerseys at the Tour de France or 121 victories enough? Because then there is so much more), but also for how he knows how to approach sport, in the successes and in the most difficult moments: “Imagination and joy, life is also a lot of fun, if you take it too seriously it will eat you up.”
anecdotes
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Sagan lent himself to the game of changing tires and told thanks to the stimuli of Ciro Scognamiglio, who followed his career even before it became one, and Pierluigi Pardo, a cycling enthusiast thanks also to him who “made it pop.” Many anecdotes have been revealed from a career that has just ended and is probably inimitable, but which will no longer continue on the road, but with mountain biking, perhaps towards Paris 2024: “A youthful passion. With which I began and will close the circle.” The words of friends such as Nibali, Ganna, Viviani, Gatto, among others, helped him. The World Championships, the classics starting with Paris Robaix, the Tour and the Giro, but there was also space for passions outside of cycling and the example of great champions: “In football, one of my sources of inspiration was Ronaldinho, which I couldn’t in the event at the Festival, also due to the joy he showed when he played. And Valentino Rossi, it’s wonderful to see him rejoice, always in a different and imaginative way, over his victories.” The same joy that Sagan brought to cycling and which involved the hundreds of people, young and adults, who surrounded him after the meeting at the Santa Chiara Auditorium for a selfie and an autograph. The most beautiful dimension for him and those who love him for what he does while riding a bicycle.