That Peter Sagan can sprint like no other is well known. But his start at the Olympic MTB race in Rio was phenomenal. The Slovakian started the race from the back of the seventh row, i.e. from the last position in the 49-strong field of riders, and after the introductory lap he was suddenly in the lead. "I was startled when he came shooting up the side of the first climb," said Nino Schurter. Sagan was able to keep up with the pace at the front and joined the five-man lead group on the first lap. "My start was very good. After the first lap I was right at the front," confirmed Sagan.
But then a moment of carelessness in a stone field and the front tyre of the pop star in the professional peloton was flat. That was on the second lap. Sagan was unlucky, as the tech zone was a long way away and so he had to walk a long way. The defect dropped the 26-year-old back to 28th place. However, the 2008 Junior MTB World Champion continued to fight, overtaking Fumic and Milatz and finding himself in 20th place after three laps. But then Sagan suffered another puncture. "I got two punctures and then had to walk a long way each time, as I always had the punctures directly behind the tech zone. That made it impossible to catch up with the guys in front. But that's mountain biking," said Sagan afterwards. The flat tyre dropped him back to 41st position and Sagan ultimately finished the Olympic race in 35th place, one lap down.
Nevertheless, he has no regrets about his start: "After seven years, I have once again competed in an MTB race. I'm glad I gave it a go, but a race is a race, there's only top or flop."
And will we see Peter Sagan on his mountain bike more often in the future? Probably not. "I don't think I'll be switching back to the mountain bike any time soon. Maybe I'll try another race. But for now it's back to the road," said Sagan after the Olympic race. By the way: Peter Sagan was the second road world champion after Cadel Evans to take part in an Olympic mountain bike race. Evans won the World Championship title on the road in 2009, in Atlanta 1996 (9th place) and in Sydney 2000 (7th place) he had competed in the MTB race at the Olympics.
