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Sagan in the doldrums. He had the worst season of his career

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His move to the French team surprised many, but he seemed to fit in after all. But it did not have a positive effect on Peter’s results.

Just a short introduction to a failed season. For example, in 2016 “Peter the Great” defended the world champion, won the monument of Flanders and also defended the points jersey at the Tour de France. He recorded at least 19 wins in a season.

This year he is a sad shadow of his glory years. He won a stage in the Tour de Suisse, was 7th in the World Championship, 5th in Milan-Turin and 14th in the first World Gravel WC on Sunday.

Cycling has changed, that’s for sure… If you’re not in the best shape, you can’t win. No one can, not me, not Remco Evenepoel, not Wout van Aert, not Tadej Pogačar or Mathieu van der Poel.

Peter Sagan

He has often been close to the podium in important races, including a few stages of the Tour de France, but he is still missing something from the absolute top. It’s pretty rough in cycling. You are not the first, you do not lick the cream. You are not on stage, practically nobody knows about you.

From this point of view, it is therefore a disastrous season for the Slovak champion. Reasons? One is indisputable, and it’s certainly not Sagan’s fault. In the last two years, he had to overcome covid-19 three times. Twice it ruined his pre-season training and then again in the final days of the Tour de Suisse, just before the start of the Tour de France. Since the beginning of the pandemic, he has won only eight races and many people almost wrote him off.

However, he quickly recovered from his third illness with covid-19 at the Tour de Suisse in June and won the Slovak national championship for the eighth time in his career.

He also rode the Tour de France, finishing sixth, fourth and fifth in the opening road stages, then fourth in the sprint to Carcassonne and fifth on the Champs-Élysées. In the third stage in Denmark, Wout Van Aert closed him down a bit at the barrier and Peter was convinced he could have won. By the way, he last won a stage at the Tour in 2019.

Just for fun, when Zdeněk Štybar was a year older, he won the prestigious E3 BinckBank Classic and Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and finished fourth at Strade Bianche. Even Julian Alaphilippe, who was seriously injured in the Liège–Bastogne–Liège classic and had to miss part of the season completely, was finally slightly better than Sagan in the rankings this year. And Alejandro Valverde, ten years older, attacked the front positions in practically every race he drove.

“It certainly wasn’t my best season, but it wasn’t my worst either, I don’t think I have to ‘save’ it,” the Slovakian ckylist was soulful before the World Championships in September.

But he wasn’t right. The 2022 season was truly the absolute worst of his career. Just look at the statistics and it’s absolutely clear. Now, in the ranking with 443 points, one of the best-paid cyclists in the world did not even fit into the top 100. He was only worse off in 2009, 11 years ago, when he was 19 and just starting out as a professional.

Sagan knows that after years of success, the autumn of his career is coming. A new generation of drivers is emerging who are winning the biggest races. But the same rules apply to everyone.

“Cycling has changed, that’s for sure. The way we race has changed, the riders have changed and so has the way we train. If you are not at your best these days, you cannot win. No one can, not me, not Remco Evenepoel, not Wout van Aert, not Tadej Pogačar or Mathieu van der Poel. I think we’ve seen that at different points in the season,” Sagan acknowledged.

The famous Slovak won his first world title in 2015 in Richmond, USA. In 2016, he beat Mark Cavendish in a sprint in Doha. He won his third title the very next year in Bergen, Norway, when he came from behind in the sprint and ended Alexander Kristoff’s dream of a home victory.

The season did not go well for his Total Energies team either. In the overall results, they are crouching in the penultimate place of the World Tour teams.

What will happen next with Sagan is the question. He is still the draw of races and one of the most popular fighters on social networks. He will probably continue next year and complete the contract. However, it is not excluded that if he does not get up next season, he will end up completely, just like his brother Juraj did this year.

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