Peter Sagan on Pogačar dominance: “The WorldTour is too small for him”

Sagan won the Tour of Flanders in 2016 with a solo breakaway from the Paterberg. But these days, the race starts much earlier. “I know,” he laughs in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. “Times have changed. I was much smarter back then. I liked winning races, but I didn’t like suffering. If I could choose between attacking from far out or staying in the peloton for another fifty kilometers and then breaking away, I’d choose the latter. That was easier. Less pain.”

Pogacar, in particular, is all about breaking away early in races. According to the Slovak, this has a double effect. “Above all, he has to race the way he wants to. And hey, Pogacar is great for the sport. They should just let him race in a category of his own. The WorldTour is too small for him. Because of that, he also makes cycling boring in a way. You can’t put it any other way.”

‘There’s only one reason why Milan-Sanremo was interesting this year: because he crashed and we suddenly got a great battle,’ he continues. ‘Even I never thought he’d attack on the Cipressa after his crash. But Pogacar is so crazy that he does even that. People sometimes say racing isn’t like playing PlayStation. For him, it is. Even easier than PlayStation. But here’s the thing: as beautiful as it was to watch at Milan-Sanremo, that’s how boring it is on other days.’

There are quite a few parallels between Sagan and Pogacar. 'Of course, he’s won a lot more than I have, but the life he’s living now is the one I lived ten years ago. And honestly: better him than me. I was a pro for fourteen years, I had my share of fame—and I still have a little bit of it. I don’t need any more of that. That’s why I always said I’d retire at 30. In the end, I kept going until I was 33.'

Pogacar has also toyed with the idea of early retirement. “I can give Tadej only one piece of advice: live your life and your career the way you want to. Which isn’t easy when you’re right in the thick of it. The pressure weighing on you, so many people who want to use—or even abuse—you: it’s hard to deal with that and keep realizing what’s important to you.”

Sagan couldn’t keep it up in his final years. “I just kept racing. Meanwhile, my son turned 3, 4, 5… And I was always away. I spent more time with other people than with him. That got to me. Especially after the COVID period. The last three years were a nightmare: I’d had COVID a few times and just couldn’t get back into shape. More and more often, I found myself asking, ‘What am I doing here? I should be at home with my son, not on the road with strangers.’”

After his reign as the emperor of cycling, the superhumans, the aliens, emerged: Van der Poel, Van Aert, Pogacar, and Evenepoel took the sport to a new level. It marked the end of Sagan’s dominance and the beginning of an era where races became faster and faster. Sagan witnessed it all from the front row.

He recalls the 2019 World Road Cycling Championships in Yorkshire, where he even finished fifth. Van der Poel started the race very early with a late attack. ‘In the end, he didn’t make it. He crashed, out of energy, low on sugar or something. But even then I thought: what is he getting himself into? That year I had already lost a sprint to Van Aert in the Tour and had seen Evenepoel in action at the Tour of San Juan. Their talent, their guts: you could just see it.’

Evenepoel will make his debut in the Tour of Flanders this coming Sunday. What does the 2016 winner think of his chances? 'I don’t think Remco is without a chance in the Tour of Flanders. On the other hand, he’s not quite as technically skilled as Pogacar, Van Aert, or Van der Poel. His chances will always be better in the Amstel Gold Race and Liège–Bastogne–Liège.'