Peter Sagan insists on retiring on a MTB - will we see him at the Olympic Games?

The Slovak is going virtually unnoticed throughout this 2023 season, which will be his last as a professional road cyclist. Now, after finishing a Tour de France in which he has not been seen at any time. However, Peter Sagan maintains his plans to continue competing in mountain biking, seeking to participate in the Paris Olympics in this modality.

"I have nothing to prove" says Sagan after Tour de France

Not so long ago, one of the best, if not the best, cyclist on the international scene however, Peter Sagan, who announced a few months ago that this would be his last year as a professional road cyclist seems to be simply going through the races with his mind totally off racing.

A strange thing in the current scene for a 33-year-old cyclist at a time when it is not uncommon for races to stretch into his 40s. However, Peter Sagan, with 3 rainbows, 7 green jerseys from the Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and 121 victories to his name, can add little to a tremendously successful career from which he already seems to have disconnected.

Think what you want but @petosagan is the boss. We will miss him and his antics in the peloton @LeTour #Sagan #CouchPeloton pic.twitter.com/Tr11M7R8dd

— christophe mallet - (@cmallet) July 23, 2023

"Now I want to concentrate on my work, my family and have fun mountain biking," Sagan said when asked about the decision to end his career at such a young age. "Now I will focus one more year on mountain biking and, I don't know yet, maybe I can continue with it."

Peter Sagan's insistence on mountain biking, the modality in which he began his cycling career, seems to point to trying to be at the Olympic Games in Paris next year, a modality in which he was already an Olympian in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro although with a race to forget in which he suffered two flat tyres that left him out of the race after having done the most difficult thing which was to come back from the back of the grid.

However, the real chances of getting a place in the Olympic race are minimal and depend on Slovakia achieving a great result at the Glasgow World Championships, where the two best countries are awarded a place in Paris. The other option would be to get a place by ranking in a qualification period that closes on May 26, 2024, an option that seems unlikely as Slovakia has to overcome a disadvantage of more than 1,000 points to reach the first of the positions that would give the right to an Olympic place.

In any case, we'll see if, as Sagan himself says, the move to fat tires is just for fun, this manages to generate enough motivation for us to see a competitive Sagan again.