Tourreporter
Matej Mohric wins the 19th stage of the Tour de France and then fights back tears. He then gives insights into the mental life of a professional cyclist.
The winner of the day was overcome with emotion. A good hour after Matej Mohoric had crossed the finish line of the 19th stage of the Tour de France in Poligny with a wafer-thin lead over Kasper Asgren, the Slovenian was still fighting back tears. A fight he sometimes won, sometimes not.
“It’s brutal to be a professional cyclist”
A lot came together in these moments after his stage win: the grief for his teammate Gino Mäder, who fell to his death at the Tour de Suisse in June. The joy of his own victory, which was already the third success for his team Bahrain-Victorious on this tour. But above all, the sheer existence as a professional cyclist with everything that goes with it.
“This win means a lot to me,” said Mohoric, fighting back tears. “It’s difficult and brutal to be a professional cyclist. You suffer a lot in preparation, you sacrifice a part of your life, your family and do everything to be ready. And then after a few days you realize that everyone else is so incredibly strong that you can hardly hold the rear wheel.”
Matej Mohoric, 28, from Katj in Slovenia is a successful professional cyclist. In Poligny, he was able to celebrate a stage win in the Tour of France for the third time, after winning two stages of the tour in 2021. Last year he won the great classic Milan-Sanremo. His palmarès also include a stage win in the Giro d’Italia and the Tour of Spain as well as the overall victory in the 2018 Tour of Germany.
Spring classic in the French summer
But in Poligny, he felt an urgent need to speak out about the suffering, pain and mental stress that his job entails. “We torture each other every day,” Mohoric said. “You go through so much pain but nobody gives up because it’s the Tour and you want to make it to Paris.” 150 riders deserved to win a stage so they could get a reward for all the suffering. But that’s just not possible. “And especially in the third week, when everyone is tired, it’s all about the mental aspect,” explained Mohoric.
That was also the case on this day, when it looked as if a Belgian spring classic would be held in the middle of the French summer. It took around 57 kilometers for a breakaway group of nine to form, which later grew. Among other things, with Mohoric “as our ace up the sleeve”, as his teammate Nikias Arndt later put it.
The attack by Kasper Asgren and Ben O’Connor on the Côte d’Ivory, a climb in the third category around 30 kilometers from the finish, he was only able to go along with the pure strength of his will under great pain, said Mohoric. Because he knew that this was the crucial moment. It was also this trio that covered the rest of the way together and decided the day’s victory among themselves.
Emotional after the race, analyst on the bike
The sense for such moments is a crucial quality in breakaway groups. And as emotional as Mohoric was after the race, he’s calculating when he’s on the bike. “I try to assess the situation as if I were looking at it in retrospect,” Mohoric explained in Poligny. “And then I make the best decision.”
In the final of the 19th stage, the arithmetic game was quickly settled. O’Connor would have to attempt an attack with a kilometer to go. Which he did, as the Australian was the weakest sprinter of the trio. So Asgren and Mohoric were prepared and countered.
With that, the stage win was just a question between the two. And Mohoric knew “that in training of 100 sprints, he would lose 100 against Kasper”. So he waited as long as he could on the Dane’s rear wheel, only to overtake him at the last moment – by a few millimeters. “These are the games we play and we’re fighting through the pain because that’s what we want,” Mohoric said. “I like being a professional cyclist.”
